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Physical Science 




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PHYSICAL SCIENCE, 



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BY 



T. NELSON DALE, 



AUTHOR OF "A STUDY OF THE RH^TIC STRATA OF THE VAL DI LEDRO 
IN THE SOUTHERN TYROL," U A CONTRIBUTION TO THE GEOLOGY 
OF RHODE ISLAND" ; CORRESPONDING MEMBER OF THE IMPE- 
RIAL, ROYAL, GEOLOGICAL INSTITUTION, VIENNA. 




BOSTON 

LEE AND SHEPARD, PUBLISHERS 

NEW YORK 

CHARLES T. DILLINGHAM 

1884 



~2>Lx+o 

■ J]3 



Copyright, 



By LEE AND SHEPARD. 



All rights reserved* 



THE OUTSKIRTS OF PHYSICAL SCIENCE. 



PREFACE 



There are a number of subjects which, although 
not within the domain proper of the physical 
sciences, invite the attention of the student of 
nature. These are the outskirts into which he is 
often tempted to wander, either to widen his 
knowledge and sympathies or to enable him to 
answer intelligently the questions of others. These 
essays are the results of a few such wanderings. 
They are the outgrowth of an early fondness for 
the study of natural science, and of religious 
convictions equally strong, bound to each other by 
that desire for unity and harmony which belongs 
to every seeker after truth. 

These tentative papers would embody at least 
the spirit which should characterize comprehensive 
treatises on the same subjects. The first three 
have been printed separately during the past few 
years for private circulation. Because they have 



IV PREFA( 

interested a few, it has been supposed that, in a 
revised form, they might prove acceptable to a 
somewhat larger circle. The rather numerous 
and, in some cases, lengthy quotations are, it is 
believed, pertinent and important ; and it is hoped 
that the thread of original matter which connects 
them will be found strong enough to hold them 
together. 

The essays present briefly the more important 
relations- of the sciences of nature to faith, educa- 
tion, the Bible, and religious science respectively. 

Newport, R. L, 1883. 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

The Harmony between Christian Faith 
and Physical Science .... 7 

Scientific Studies : Their Place and Use 
in Education . . . . . .29 

On the Interpretation of the First Chap- 
ter of the Book of Genesis . . 69 

The Vital Questions in the Conflict be- 
tween Religious and Physical Science . 119 



THE HARMONY 



BETWEEN 



CHRISTIAN FAITH AND PHYSICAL SCIENCE. 



TO CHRISTIANS >ND NATURALISTS. 



" Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth ? 
deela?-e,ifthou hast understanding.'''' — Job xxxviii. 4. 

" His Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, through 
whom also he made the world {ages).'" — Heb. i. 2. 

SOME thoughtful minds, who hold enlight- 
ened views as to the essential harmony 
of religion and science, do not always discern 
the method oi that harmony. It will be read- 
ily granted that a profounder knowledge of 
both theological and physical science,* and a 
broader apprehension of the spirit and the 
sphere both of revealed religion and of sci- 
ence, have enabled them to obtain a clearer 
view of that harmony. Their loyalty to com- 
mon-sense has also greatly aided them. 

While comparatively little difficulty is thus 
experienced in recognizing the essential har- 
mony of religion and science, the method of 
that harmony is as yet far from being fully un- 
derstood in such questions as those of the Bible 
cosmogony and chronology, the deluge, the 
origin of languages, and of man himself. These 

* The term " physical " is generally used in these essays in contrast 
to the term " metaphysical." 



IO THE OUTSKIRTS OF 

problems involve nearly all of the sciences, 
and such questions in theology as : In what 
sense and to what extent are the Scriptures 
inspired ? How far were they designed, if at 
all, to reveal other than religious truth ? What 
principle governs the treatment of natural 
causes in the language of inspiration ? And 
to what extent is the language of the Old 
Testament to be regarded as allegorical ? 
Such problems are so vast in their scope, 
and of such intellectual and religious conse- 
quence, that an exposition of them which 
would satisfy both the highest theological 
and scientific intelligence, as well as the best 
Christian sense of the day, would require 
more than a lifetime of profound, catholic, 
and Christian study. Indeed, it may be said 
that the whole question of the relation of the 
natural to the supernatural, unsearchable as 
it is, is involved in these problems. 

While these fields of study are so vast, and 
beset with so many difficulties, there is a 
smaller field, where not only the fundamental 
harmony between religion and science may be 
satisfactorily and briefly shown, but where also 
the method of that harmony may be viewed 
with the eye of a loving and intelligent faith. 



PHYSICAL SCIENCE. XI 

It is that given in the title of this paper. While 
many of the questions between religion and 
science are largely of a speculative character, 
this one is very practical in its bearing ; for 
the disastrous effect of a Christless science 
upon men renders Christians suspicious of 
science, and the fatal effect of an unenlight- 
ened faith upon science deafens the ear of the 
mere scientist to the appeal of evangelical 
Christianity, and impels him to seek to sat- 
isfy his spiritual nature with mere intellect- 
ual nourishment. 

Avoiding theological language, by Christian 
Faith is to be understood simply that filial 
attitude of the soul towards its Creator which 
is made possible by the loving sacrifice and 
mediation of Jesus Christ, and is brought 
about in various ways by the gracious influ- 
ence of the divine Spirit. 

We might stop here to consider at length 
the state of a man in such an attitude. It 
will be sufficient, however, to say that a man 
so disposed toward God is in a state of in- 
creasing harmony with himself physically, 
intellectually, and morally, as well as so- 
cially with his fellow men as far as in 
him lies, and above all with the benevo- 



12 THE OUTSKIRTS OF 

lent character and will of his Maker. His 
complex being is brought under the gentle 
dominion of the precepts of Christ, and all 
his faculties gradually enter into their nor- 
mal relations, and fulfil their appropriate 
offices. Coleridge thus describes the effect of 
Christian faith : " Never yet did there exist 
a full faith in the divine Word, by whom light 
as well as immortality was brought into the 
world, which did not expand the intellect, 
while it purified the heart ; which did not 
multiply the aims and objects of the under- 
standing, while it fixed and simplified those 
of the desires and passions.'' 

While the Christian enjoys the holy free- 
dom implied in a filial relationship to his 
divine Parent, the giver of physical as well 
as moral law, and his mind and heart are 
expanded by his new hope, he looks upon 
Nature with new interest. He intuitively 
recognizes God as her maker, and sees 
in her the workmanship of God. He soon 
learns to praise God in His works. The 
evidences of divine wisdom bring to his mind 
the evidences of divine goodness. He may 
know little or nothing of the system of forces 
and laws by which God has fashioned the 



PHYSICAL SCIEXCE. 



13 



world, and brought it to its present state of 
perfection and beauty, — that is, how God made 
it, — but he knows that somehow God did make 
it, and that this God is his Father in heaven. 
When the soul first beholds Nature in the 
light of the cross, then does it indeed realize 
and enjoy her beauty. With a conscience 
relieved of its burden, the soul united forever 
to its divine source and object, in harmony 
with itself and with Nature, looks upon her 
with a sense of fellowship ; for it perceives 
that both nature and the spiritual life are 
from Him, and it finds the moral order and 
beauty within, responding to the physical 
order and beauty without. 

With this spirit the Psalms abound. Some 
of them were evidently written by persons 
who not only communed with God, but were 
also intimately acquainted with external na- 
ture. It is interesting to note how fully 
Alexander Von Humboldt appreciated the 
truthfulness and grandeur of their descrip- 
tions of nature. Would that the great natur- 
alist had told us as plainly that he loved their 
religious import also. He says: " One would 
say that a picture of the whole cosmos is exhib- 
ited in the 104th Psalm. One is surprised to 



j^ THE OUTSKIRTS OF 

find the universe, heaven and earth, portrayed 
in a few great outlines in a lyric poem of so 
small a compass. Here the quiet, painful 
toil of man, from sunrise until the end of the 
day's work in the evening, is contrasted to 
the moving, elemental life of nature. This 
contrast, the universal conception of the 
reciprocity of phenomena, this regard to an 
omnipresent, invisible Power, able to rejuve- 
nate the earth or grind it to powder, consti- 
tutes the solemnity of a poetical composition 
which is less warm and tender than sub- 
lime." * 

The closing chapters of the venerable Book 
cf Job contain descriptions of nature matchless 
for their simplicity and fidelity. The passing 
cloud, the timely rain, the snow, thunder, 
whirlwind, storm and sunshine, day and night, 
the adjustment of seas and continents, the 
mysteries of life and death, the procession of 
the stars, the multiplication of animal life, the 
instincts of the wild ass, the ostrich, and the 
w r ar-horse, the strength of the wild ox, the 
hippopotamus, and the crocodile, and even the 
colors of the peacock's feather, — all there 
teach to the proud and discordant spirit of 

*Kosrnos, Vol. II. pp. 46, 47. 



PHYSICAL SCIENCE, 15 

man a lesson of the wisdom and power of God 
as revealed in the adjustments, the adapta- 
tions, the intelligences, the orderliness, and 
the beauty of nature. 

We have the words of our Lord himself 
contrasting the beauty with which God 
clothes a flow r er with the pomp of human 
art;. and it is safe to assert that devout ad- 
miration of God's works has characterized 
the more intelligent and pious of God's chil- 
dren in all times and countries ; and what 
mortal spirit has not sometimes in Nature's 
presence felt its better elements silently 
stirred and appealed to ? 

Physical Science may be briefly defined as 
that science which has primarily for its 
object the intellectual subjugation of Nature 
in order that she may become the intellec- 
tual possession of man, independently of the 
possibility of that knowledge being made to 
contribute to his material welfare. More 
explicitly, her object is not only to obtain an 
encyclopedic knowledge of the physical world, 
but also a philosophical and historical knowl- 
edge of it ; that is, an understanding of the 
laws which govern it, and of the relation of 
those laws to each other. Science endeavors 



j6 the outskirts of 

to comprehend the system of the physical 
universe. 

So that when the Christian recognizes the 
physical world as the work of God, and not 
only devoutly admires it but instinctively ac- 
knowledges that it is pervaded by divine wis- 
dom, Physical Science stands prepared to un- 
fold to him that wisdom as far as she has appre- 
hended it. He knows that God made and 
rules it somehow. Science tells him how. And 
thus when the psalmist says : " O Lord, how 
manifold are thy works ! in wisdom hast 
thou made them all : the earth is full of thy 
riches " ; * while with the aid of divine grace we 
may be able to rise to the same height of wor- 
ship to which he rose, we shall, with the aid 
of physical science, understand something of 
the vast intellectual import of his words. 

There are several familiar passages in the 
Scriptures in which the relation of Christ to 
the physical world is set forth. Without in- 
volving ourselves in the profound questions 
which centre about the Trinity, we may en- 
deavor to form some simple conception of the 
meaning of these passages as far as it is of 
interest to an ordinarily thoughtful mind. 

* Ps. civ. 24. 



PHYSICAL SCIENCE. 



17 



" The same was in the beginning with God. 
All things were made through him ; and with- 
out him was not anything made that hath 
been made." — John i. 2, 3.* 

" All things have been created through him 
and unto him." — Col. i. 16. 

" And now, O Father, glorify thou me with 
thine own self with the glory which I had 
with thee before the world was." — John 
xvii. 5. 

From such passages we may infer that the 
same Being who took upon Him our sins, and 
carried our sorrows, while in the flesh, had, 
while in the glory in which He had dwelt with 
the Father, been an agent in making the 
physical universe. Therefore as no soul 
enters Heaven without Him, so no crystal in 
the rock, flower in the field, or shell upon the 
shore is without Him whom we call our Lord 
and Master. He is the visible link between 
the spiritual and physical kingdoms of God. 
In Him centre all the mysteries both of godli- 
ness and of nature. The law of love and the 
law of nature proceed through Him ; for the 
spiritual foundations of the Kingdom of 
Heaven were laid by Him in His earthly life 

* Revised version, American rendering. 



I 8 THE OUTSKIRTS OF 

and sacrifice, and the physical and metaphysi- 
cal foundations of the world were laid through 
Him in the counsels of eternity. The reve- 
lations of Faith and those of Science are thus 
revelations in the kingdoms of the one God 
and the one Word. 

To illustrate this truth : Do we follow the 
scientist into all the minutiae of his analysis, 
or back again as he builds up his magnificent 
synthesis, or do we accompany him as he 
patiently accumulates a vast number of con- 
current facts, and then unfolds to us some 
great natural law, we are all the while but 
picking a cloth to pieces, thread by thread, or 
putting the same together again, thread by 
thread, or else reading the pattern according 
to which it was woven by a divine Workman. 
Do we turn from this to the study of the 
beautiful character of some saintly Christian 
ripe for Heaven, we are but examining an- 
other and a finer work from the same divine 
hand. Or, lastly, do we go to the inspired 
word, we there behold, in the face of Jesus 
Christ, the moral and personal character of 
the divine Workman himself, " full of grace 
and truth." 

In the light of this truth nature and the 



PHYSICAL SCIENCE. ig 

stucy of nature assume a most satisfactory 
aspect, as may be thus shown : In looking 
upon a mountain landscape we are first im- 
pressed with its beauty ;and the more the eye 
has been trained to discern the beautiful, the 
greater will be our appreciation of the beauty 
of the scene. But if we have a knowledge of 
geology we shall, besides perceiving the beauty 
of form, color, and perspective, which at first 
engaged us, understand the structure, history, 
and origin of the mountains, and thus com- 
prehend the scientific significance of the scene. 
And we shall not only consider the forces and 
laws by and under which the mountains were 
formed, but we shall be led to think of these 
in their effects upon the climate and vegeta- 
tion of the surrounding country, and so in 
their relations to the wants of man. If, in 
addition to an eye trained to discern beauty, 
and a mind furnished with scientific knowl- 
edge, we possess Christian minds, we shall see 
the wisdom of our Heavenly Father displayed 
in the origin, history, structure, effect, and 
beauty of the mountains, and in reflecting 
upon it we shall find that our philosophical, 
sesthetical, and religious natures are all har- 
monized and satisfied. This aspect would 



20 THE OUTSKIRTS OF 

thus include all that a Newton, a Humboldt, 
an Agassiz or a Darwin, a Ritter and a Rus- 
kin, have revealed to us of Nature, comple- 
mented and sanctified by that which Christ 
and Paul and John beheld in* her. Thus while 
Science comprehends the mechanism of nature, 
Faith apprehends her Mechanist. 

The practical effect of such an under- 
standing of truth, both upon Christian faith 
and scientific pursuits, is apparent. Chris- 
tian faith may well be supplemented by a 
knowledge of divine wisdom, and thus add 
the grace of intellectual humility to her graces 
of the heart, and discover new grounds for 
intelligent worship. And on the other hand, 
just as a knowledge of botany is incomplete 
without knowing the source of the heat and 
light which sustain vegetable life, so a knowl- 
edge of physical law needs to be comple- 
mented by a knowledge of the Giver of that 
law, although reasons much more momentous 
and personal than this are not lacking to 
draw the scientist into a moral and spiritual 
conformity to Him whose physical laws he so 
well understands. 

Of the religious and intellectual satisfac- 
tion which the Christian mind experiences in 



PHYSICAL SCIENCE. 



21 



view of the divine goodness as shown in re- 
deeming love, and the divine wisdom as man- 
ifested in the physical world, it may truly 
be said: " My heart is satisfied, for I have 
reached the issue of perfect benevolence ; 
my reason is satisfied, for I have reached the 
issue of perfect wisdom." And this satisfac- 
tion has found outward expression also in lives 
which have united the moral beauty of 
Chiistian character to eminent attainments 
in physical science ; although some of these 
Christian scientists may not have clearly dis- 
cerned the bond of union between their faith 
and their science ; and others have felt it their 
duty to forsake the attractive field of scientific 
research to minister more directly to the 
transcendent spiritual needs of their fellow- 
men. 

When we consider the self-denying and 
patient researches, the unswerving loyalty to 
truth, the love of exactitude, and that beau- 
tiful intellectual humility begotten of much 
knowledge, which are so characteristic of the 
true man of science, we might think it but a 
step from these to the morality of the Sermon 
on the Mount, and of the 13th of First Corin- 
thians. But Christian faith is the only solid 



22 THE OUTSKIRTS OF 

foundation of Christian morality. These intel- 
lectual virtues, however, are its fitting com- 
panions and its true analogues. There is 
indeed a natural harmony between the objec- 
tive moral attitude of a healthful Christian life 
and the objective intellectual attitude of the 
genuine student of nature, or between study of, 
and obedience to the laws of our moral being- 
arid those of the physical world. Preachers and 
hymnists of all times have turned with fond- 
ness to the thought of this correlation be- 
tween the moral and physical. Thus Robert- 
son, in his sermon on the " Star in the East," 
exclaims : " Oh ! be sure all the universe 
tells of Christ and leads to Christ. Rightly 
those ancient magians deemed, in believing 
that God was worshipped truly in that au- 
gust temple. The stars preach the mind of 
Christ. Not as of old, when a mystic star 
guided their feet to Bethlehem ; but now, to 
the mind of the astronomer, they tell of 
eternal order and harmony : they speak of 
changeless law, where no caprice reigns. 
You may calculate the star's return ; and to 
the day, and hour, and minute it will be there. 
This is the fidelity of God. These mute 
masses obey the law impressed upon them by 



PHYSICAL SCIENCE. 



23 



their Creators hand, unconsciously: and that 
law is the law of their own nature. To un- 
derstand the laws of our nature, and con- 
sciously and reverently to obey them, that 
is the mind of Christ, the sublimest spirit 
of the Gospel." 

Among the minds which have afforded 
living illustrations of the unison of an intel- 
lect masculine enough to master scientific 
truth, with a character genuine enough to 
entertain Christian faith, we may recall : Pas- 
cal, whose mathematical genius went hand 
in hand with his piety, and who but for the 
somewhat unwholesome type of the latter, 
and feeble health, would have accomplished 
far more for the world ; Cuvier, who amid his 
great zoological and paleontological works, 
and while rendering numerous administrative 
services to his country, mainly in the cause 
of popular education, presided over a faculty 
of Protestant theology, was vice-president of 
a Bible society, caused the establishment of 
fifty new pastorates in France, and who left 
to history a blameless life ; Isaac Newton, 
who not only caused copies of the Bible to 
be distributed to the needy, but studied that 
book himself ; Chalmers, whose scientific apti- 



2 4 



THE OUTSKIRTS OF 



tudes were as great as his fidelity in preach- 
ing the Gospel to the poor ; Carl Ritter, the 
physical geographer, who in one of his treat- 
ises almost foreshadowed the missionary ef- 
forts which to-day are elevating the races of 
Africa ; Buckland and Hugh Miller, whose 
popular works may speak for them ; Faraday, 
who confessed that a spiritual knowledge of 
God is not to be obtained by scientific meth- 
ods ; the late Prof. James Clerk Maxwell, 
who " enriched the inheritance left by Newton, 
consolidated the work of Faraday, and im- 
pelled the mind of Cambridge to afresh course 
of real investigation," and yet who is said to 
have been " a living contradiction to the fal- 
lacy that science and religion are antagonis- 
tic forces, — one of the most lovable of men, 
a sincere and unostentatious Christian, — of 
whom even his own friends could say, ' James 
has lived at the gate of heaven ' " ; and in 
our own country, the late Prof. Benjamin 
Silliman and President Edward Hitchcock, 
whose Christian character and influence 
many still remember ; and also the recently 
departed Joseph Henry, who died, " resting his 
faith and hope upon Jesus Christ." 

We may gather some lessons of practical 



PHYSICAL SCIENCE. 



25 



wisdom from the truth set forth. What 
should be the attitude of the Christian toward 
physical science, especially at the present 
time ? Certainly not one of enmity, nor even 
one of indifference. We may deeply regret 
that one recently taken away, whom God 
endowed with rare capacities and opportuni- 
ties to understand His works, may not have 
felt his need of a more living faith, and, while 
writing so much on the physical nature and 
relationships of man, gave his readers so lit- 
tle light on man's moral personality ; or that 
another prominent naturalist of the day has 
not guarded language directed against a short- 
sighted interpretation of Scripture, from 
being understood as directed against re- 
vealed truth itself ; or that a third, whose 
brilliant philosophical mind has scattered 
seeds of thought the world over, should yet 
fail to find room for a personal Deity in the 
universe. But we cannot refrain, if we would, 
from gladly welcoming the contributions of 
such minds to physical science, or from ad- 
miring their intellectual gifts and attain- 
ments. The revelations of science magnify 
God's wisdom. Let us, therefore, see to it 
that we be not found guilty of hindering the 



2 6 THE OUTSKIRTS OF 

cause of His benevolence by being too slow 
in recognizing that of His wisdom. Indeed, 
it is becoming in Christian philosophy quickly 
to appropriate and assimilate whatever scien- 
tific truth each revolution of thought precipi- 
tates from the troubled waters of controversy. 
Her readiness and skill in doing this will 
measure the amount of aid she renders to 
Christian faith in her conquest of men. 

But on the other side, even if unable to 
convince Science of her need of God, we may 
doubtless insist that she also shall be true to 
herself. As we demand that religious pro- 
fession shall be sustained by moral char- 
acter, let us also insist upon scientific sound- 
ness in science, and then cordially receive her 
contributions. It is interesting to remember 
in this connection the public protest which 
some questionable data, hasty inferences, 
and unscientific language of Prof. Haeckel 
called forth from a German scientist speak- 
ing in behalf of a purer science,* and also the 
many indications of the general reaction 
among scientific men from untenable and 
extreme views. If Physical Science be but 
true to herself, she cannot fail of being true 

*C. Semper, Der Hakelismus in der Zoologie. Hamburg, 1876. 



PHYSICAL SCIEXCE. 



27 



to God, and so may unite with Christian Faith 
in the praise of Him in whom centre all 
knowledge and virtue. 

Summarizing : The true basis of the har- 
mony between Christian Faith and Physical 
Science has been shown to lie : — 

First. In an apprehension of Religion as 
having mainly to do with the character of 
men. 

Second. In an apprehension of the sphere 
of Science as purely intellectual. 

Third. In understanding the reciprocal 
relations and benefits of these in the individ- 
ual life. 

Fourth. In a devout recognition of the 
divinity of Christ and his common relation to 
Man and to Nature. 



SCIENTIFIC STUDIES: 

THEIR PLACE AND USE IN EDUCATION. 



TO CLASSICAL AND SCIENTIFIC TEACHERS. 



" Histories make men wise; poets witty; the mathematics 
subtil I; natural I philosophy deepe; morall grave; logic k and 
rheto7-ick able to co7itend. — Nay there is no stond or i?npedi- 
ment i7i the wit, but may be wrought out by fit studies: like as 
diseases of the body, may have appropriate exercises" — BACON, 
Of Study, 

IT would be as difficult as it is uncalled 
for, in these times of educational enlight- 
enment, to advance new arguments to prove 
that scientific studies ought to occupy an im- 
portant place in a systematic, liberal educa- 
tion, and thatthey both directly and indirectly 
subserve certain important ends. The word 
" scientific" here is used in its popular and 
more limited sense, with reference to the sci- 
ences of nature. But the attention of educa- 
tors is often recalled to this truth by the re- 
curring needs of society, and to students of 
nature it is always an interesting subject. 

The place assigned to scientific studies in 
education not only affects the intellectual 
welfare of man, but has also to do indirectly 

This essay in its original form was read before the Poughkeepsie 
Society of Natural Science in 1878. 



32 THE OUTSKIRTS OF 

with his moral well-being, and thus with the 
whole end and nature of man himself. For 
the kind and amount of intellectual culture 
which men need depend primarily upon the 
object of all intellectual culture, and that de- 
pends upon the object of man's existence; 
but in order to understand the object of man's 
existence we must have a true conception of 
the nature of man, and of the world of being 
and of matter to which he is related. Going 
back, therefore, to this fundamental question, 
we may say briefly that he has a threefold 
nature, — physical, intellectual, and moral. 

The physical world may be divided into 
matter, physical force, vegetable and animal 
life. At the head of the great system of ani- 
mal life, with its various types and its multitu- 
dinous ramifications in time and space, stands 
man. The human body is the most perfect 
of animal organisms, whether we regard it as 
a piece of mechanical or biological mechanism, 
or consider it in its adaptation to man's in- 
tellectual and psychical necessities. The effi- 
ciency of this body may not only be main- 
tained by obedience to the laws which govern 
it, but it may be increased, to a certain extent, 
by physical culture. The prolonged physical 



PHYSICAL SCIENCE. 



33 



and intellectual vigor of Mr. Gladstone is an 
example of the good results of careful living; 
and we need not go as far back as Grecian 
history to learn what gymnastics will do for 
physical development. 

It is a truism that the intellect is capable 
of immense development. Perception, imagi- 
nation, memory, and judgment may, by disci- 
pline and use, become highly efficient instru- 
ments for the acquisition and communi- 
cation of knowledge. Intellectual culture, 
added to great native intellectual power, gave 
to the world Plato, Aristotle, Milton, Bacon, 
Newton, Goethe, Hegel, and Humboldt. The 
human intellect may explore the depths of 
mathematical truth, or may endeavor to 
grasp the outline and laws of the material cos- 
mos, or turn its attention to the organic crea- 
tion, and study the complex forces and laws of 
life. It may enter the realm of mind, and oc- 
cupy itself with ideas and their infinite rela- 
tions, or study the spirit of man as revealed 
in history, literature, and art, or it may ascend 
still higher to the sphere of moral truth, ana- 
lyze the moral nature of man, study the moral 
government of God, and even reverently con- 
template the divine character itself. Not only 



34 



THE OUTSKIRTS OF 



is the mind capable of engaging in these ex- 
alted pursuits, but, in the field of action, it 
may play an important part in shaping the 
destinies of men and of nations, and may 
subdue the forces of nature to their service. 
Moreover, the mind is capable of rendering 
every shade and combination of thought into 
fitting and beautiful language for the pur- 
pose of intercourse or for the perpetuation 
of truth. 

But the chief glory of man is his moral 
nature. This moral nature is susceptible of 
great culture, for man may become godlike in 
character. Thus we see the pharisaical 
young Hebrew, who consented to the murder 
of Stephen, transformed into the author of 
the chapter on Christian love, and affording 
the world in his own life one of the noblest 
examples of its matchless precepts. Thus 
also have multitudes of obscurer men and 
women buried their selfish natures, and at- 
tained to a true nobility of character. 

Therefore each one of man's three natures 
is met by great possibilities ; possibilities of 
retrograde or progressive development. We 
may debase our bodies, stunt our intellects, 
and grow morally ungodlike ; or we may, by 



PHYSICAL SCIEXCE. 



35 



physical culture, retain and increase the effi- 
ciency of our bodies, by intellectual culture 
develop and store our minds, and by a Chris- 
tian life fit ourselves to enter upon a heavenly 
existence. 

Mark Hopkins, in an address, beautifully 
sets forth the physical and moral nature of 
man and his relation to the physical world. 
He says : "Is there, then, no one end of na- 
ture as a whole that we can discover? I 
think there is ; and that end I suppose to be 
the production of a man built up to the point 
where he takes possession of himself. That 
this is the end of nature as a whole, seems as 
plain to me as it is that the end of the plant 
is the production of fruit, and that the unity 
of the process of nature is found in relation 
to this, as that the unity of the process with- 
in the plant is to be found in nature's relation 
to that. What do you find ? First, that this 
great mass of inorganic matter is combined 
and moved with a looking forward to a prepa- 
ration for life But for the life which it sus- 
tains, the earth would have no value what- 
ever. Then comes the lowest form of life. . . . 
Marvellous are the forms of vegetable life, but 
they have no value whatever except as they 



36 



THE OUTSKIRTS OF 



bear relation to a life higher than themselves. 
Then comes another story, that of conscious, 
sensitive life. Man is to nature as a whole 
what nature is to the plant. ... His moral 
nature is the highest. That requires love su- 
preme to God and impartial love to man. 
Therefore as man is the crown of nature, so 
his moral perfection is the crown of man. 
Thus we have the perfect unity of man and 
nature." 

We have been considering the nature of 
man ; let us now look at the world to which 
he is so intimatel v related. Man is in the 
midst of a vast material and organic universe 
governed by forces acting in obedience to 
divine law. He is surrounded by personal 
intelligences and characters which constitute 
the intellectual and moral world. The pres- 
ence of the element of a free will in a world 
of law results in great diversity as well as in 
great possibilities of good and evil. The ag- 
gregation of these physical, rational, and moral 
natures constitutes the complex fabric of hu- 
man society, with all its numerous relations 
and obligations, and its social possibilities. 
Beyond all this, man is morally accountable 
to a Being of infinite excellencies and powers. 



PHYSICAL SCIENCE. 



37 



Such, then, in brief are the nature of man and 
the constitution of the world in which he 
exists. 

Now the object of his existence evidently 
depends upon the nature of man himself, as 
well as upon the constitution of the world. 
Body, mind, and soul call for development; 
nature, man, and God claim his attention. It 
is also evident that any view of life which 
leaves out any of these subjective or objective 
elements is defective, and will produce defec- 
tive results. For instance, let physical cul- 
ture be pursued, and intellectual and moral 
culture neglected, we shall have only gym- 
nasts, pedestrians, boating-men, etc. Let in- 
tellectual culture be pursued at the expense 
of physical and moral culture, the result will 
be mere intellectuality, with physical weakness 
on one side and moral insensibility on the 
other. Or let the moral element be cultivated 
and the physical and intellectual neglected, 
the result will be such as to defeat the very 
ends of morality. On the other hand, is na- 
ture made all ? we have as a result materialism 
in its grosser or more intellectual forms ; is 
man made all ? we have a philanthropy which 
works blindly, understanding neither the 



38 THE OUTSKIRTS OF 

physical constitution of man nor the laws of 
his spiritual nature ; is God made all ? then we 
have as a consequence all the evils of dogma- 
tism, asceticism, and monasticism. It is also 
evident that, while the neglect of any one of 
these elements will produce disastrous results, 
they cannot receive our attention in equal 
measure without mischief, but they must be 
pursued in the order of their relative impor- 
tance. 

First y that which makes for the moral na- 
ture. 

Second, that which makes for the intellect- 
ual nature. 

Third, that which makes for the physical 
nature. 

And again objectively: first, God, — then 
man, — then nature. This rule will alone 
produce symmetrical and efficient men. 

We now come to the question of intellectual 
culture in general. From what has been said 
we conclude that a right view of intellectual 
culture must assign it a place between moral 
and religious culture on the one hand, and 
physical culture on the other. Intellectual 
culture rightly understood presupposes then 
Christian character and Christian aims in life, 



PHYSICAL SCIENCE. 



39 



and should be accompanied with a due amount 
of physical culture. 

Such being the relative position of intel- 
lectual culture, what are its ends and its 
means ? As the end of life is to produce a 
symmetrical and efficient manhood, so the end 
of intellectual culture is to produce a sym- 
metrically developed and efficient intellect. 
We took a hasty glance at the great avenues 
of intellectual endeavor ; but a broad view of 
the constitution of the world will also enable 
us to determine the best means of intellectual 
culture. 

Is nature all ? Then we must devote our- 
selves exclusively to mathematics and the sci- 
ences of nature. 

Is man all ? Then we must turn to liter- 
ature, art, and history, and to the sciences of 
mind and language. 

Is God all ? Then to moral philosophy and 
theology. 

Evidently these must all be pursued, each in 
its measure. In order, therefore, to secure a 
truly liberal education every faculty of the 
mind ought to be developed, and every great 
department of knowledge ought to receive its 
share of attention. 



40 



THE OUTS KIR IS OF 



The question as to the relative educational 
value of humanistic and scientific studies is 
wisely and well stated by Matthew Arnold in 
his work on " The Higher Schools and Uni- 
versities in Germany." * He says : " The 
modern spirit tends to reach anew conception 
of the aim and office of instruction ; when 
this conception is fully reached it will put an 
end to conflict, and will probably show both 
the humanists and the realists to have been 
right in their main ideas. . . . The prime, 
direct aim of instruction is to enable a man 
to know himself and the wjrld. Such knowl- 
edge is the only sure basis for action, and this 
basis it is the true aim and office of instruc- 
tion to supply. To know himself, a man must 
know the capabilities and performances of the 
human spirit, and the value of the humanities, 
of Alterthumswissenschaft, the science of an- 
tiquity, is, that it affords for this purpose an 
unsurpassed source of light and stimulus. 
Whoever seeks help for knowing himself from 
knowing the capabilities and performances of 
the human spirit, will nowhere find a more 
fruitful object of study than in the achieve- 
ments of Greece in literature and the arts 

* Second edition. London, 1874. 



PHYSICAL SCIENCE. 



41 



during the two centuries from the birth of 
Simonides to the death of Plato. And these 
two centuries are but the flowering point of a 
long period, during the whole of which the 
ancient world offers, to the student of the 
capabilities and performances of the human 
spirit, lessons of capital importance. This 
the humanists have perceived, and the truth 
of this perception of theirs is the stronghold 
of their position. It is a vital and formative 
knowledge to know the most powerful mani- 
festations of the human spirit's activity, for 
the knowledge of them greatly feeds and 
quickens our own activity ; and they are very 
imperfectly known without knowing ancient 
Greece and Rome. But it is also a vital and 
formative knowledge to know the world, the 
laws which govern nature, and man as a part 
of nature. This the realists have perceived, 
and the truth of this perception, too, is inex- 
pugnable. Every man is born with aptitudes 
which give him access to vital and formative 
knowledge by one of these roads ; either by 
the road of studying man and his works, or 
by studying nature and her w T orks. The 
business of instruction is to seize and develop 
these aptitudes. The great and complete 



42 THE OUTSKIRTS OF 

spirits, which have all the aptitudes for both 
roads of knowledge, are rare. But much might 
be done on both roads by the same mind, if in- 
struction clearly grasped the idea of the entire 
system of aptitudes for which it has to provide ; 
of their correlation and of tlieir equipollency, so 
to speak, as all leading, if rightly employed, to 
vital knowledge ; and if then having grasped 
this idea, it provided for them. The Greek 
spirit, after its splendid hour of creative ac- 
tivity was gone, gave our race another pre- 
cious lesson by exhibiting, in the career of 
men like Aristotle and the great students of 
Alexandria, this idea of the correlation and 
equal dignity of the most different departments 
of human knowledge, and by showing the pos- 
sibility of uniting them in a single mind's edu- 
cation. . . . As our public instruction gets a 
clearer view of its own functions, of the rela- 
tions of the human spirit to knowledge, and 
of the entire circle of knowledge, it will cer- 
tainly more learn to awaken in its pupils an 
interest in that entire circle, and less allow them 
to remain total strangers to any patt of it" 

Edward L. Pierce, in his Memoir of Charles 
Sumner, relates an interesting incident which 
is not inappropriate in this connection. He 



PHYSICAL SCIENCE. 



43 



says : " He excelled in translations, and en- 
tered into the spirit of the authors so sympa- 
thetically that their best passages became 
fixed in his memory, and were ever after 
available for use. ... In history and belles- 
lettres, he was also among the foremost. 
. . . But while succeeding in these branches, 
he entirely failed in mathematics. He had 
no faculty for the science, and he became dis- 
heartened and disgusted with the study." 
Further on, in relating the events of Sum- 
ner's first post-graduate year, the author 
says: "At this time he set himself to a 
study always disagreeable to those who, like 
him, have for it no natural aptitude. Mathe- 
matics, to which, as already stated, he gave 
very little attention in college, he now felt to 
be a necessary part of a complete education, 
and determined to overcome his deficiencies 
in the neglected science He at once entered 
with zeal on the study of geometry, and found 
it less difficult than before." 

On the other hand, the importance of not 
pursuing the study of the sciences to the neg- 
lect of that of the humanities is well shown 
by the following extract from a letter from a 
member of the faculty of one of our older 



44 



THE OUTSKIRTS OF 



Eastern " Universities.' , The writer says: 
( 'We graduate two sets of boys (or 'men') 
every year, and one set has been trained 
chiefly by the study of science, the other 
chiefly by that of literature. There is no dis- 
parity in the natural capacity of the tvyo sets, 
and certainly none in the capacity and fidelity 
of their teachers. But we find that the grad- 
uates in arts have been coming steadily up to 
the level of their teachers as cultivated, 
thoughtful men, capable of taking large views 
of life. On the other hand, we feel that a 
great gulf lies between the scientific gradu- 
ates and their professors even of purely scien- 
tific branches. All of these latter are men of 
classical culture, and there is not one of them 
who will allow that sort of education to be dis- 
paraged in his presence. ,, 

The importance of this is still more strong- 
ly shown by the recent opinion of the Philo- 
sophical Faculty of the University of Berlin, 
to the effect that "the ideality of the scien- 
tific sense, interest in learning not dependent 
upon or limited by practical aims, but minis- 
tering to the liberal education of the mind as 
such, the many-sided and widely extended 
exercise of the thinking power, and an ac- 



PHYSICAL SCIEXCE. 



45 



quaintance with the classical bases of our 
science and civilization, can be satisfactorily 
cultivated only in our institutions of classical 
learning."* 

But humanistic and scientific studies, alone, 
do not constitute the whole circle of knowl- 
edge. They have to do with nature and the 
physical and intellectual side of man. They 
would have satisfied an ancient Roman or 
Greek scholar, but they cannot meet the de- 
mands of a Christian civilization. We must 
complement them w T ith the study of Christian 
ethics and Biblical theology. f These extend 
our knowledge to the moral and spiritual side of 
man's constitution, and to the divine charac- 
ter and government. They also form a most 

* See Dr. August Wilhelrn Hofmann, The Question of a Division 
of the Philosopnical Faculty. 2d edition, with an appendix. Bos- 
ton, 18S3. 

f \Lr. Matthew Arnold, in his lecture on the relation of literature 
and science in education, recently delivered in this country, claims 
that scientific studies, alone, fail to satisfy " the sense for conduct," 
and " the sense for beauty," because the facts and truths with which 
the sciences have to do are not easily brought into relation with man's 
ethical and arSthetical nature. But would it not be fair to supplement 
this statement by asking whether a living apprehension of Christian 
truth, that is, that virile and personal and tender experience of it 
which grows out of a hearty recognition of its supernatural origin, is 
not, after all, the source of the fullest satisfaction of "the sense for 
conduct," both in the man of science and the man of letters, and a'so 
whether he who has such an apprehension of Christian truth will 
not more readily relate the facts and truths of nature to his " sense for 
conduct," and even to his " sense for beauty "? 



4 6 



THE OUTSKIRTS OF 



important means of cultivating those facul- 
ties which deal with moral problems. And it 
may well be asked, whether the general lack 
of a philosophical understanding of Christian 
truth does not as much lie at the basis of the 
scepticism of to-day as does a bad state of 
the heart. For these reasons, religious and 
moral philosophy ought to form a part of 
every liberal education. 

Thus the circle of knowledge becomes com- 
plete. It comprises nature, man, and God, 
which correspond to the three great means of 
intellectual culture, — scientific, humanistic, 
and theological studies. The sphere of scien- 
tific studies may then be thus defined : // is 
one of the three great means of intellectual cul- 
ture which together go toward the upbuilding 
of a symmetrical and efiftcie7tt intellect. And 
this intellectual culture, together with moral 
and physical culture, go toward the upbuild- 
ing of a symmetrical and efficient manhood. 
Such is the place of scientific studies in a 
complete education. 

Now let us consider the use of scientific 
studies, that is, their direct and indirect effect, 
as one of the contributors to this grand re- 
sult. 



PHYSICAL SCIENCE. 47 

1. They cultivate the spirit of investiga- 
tion. We need but examine for a moment the 
spirit which animates the sciences of nature 
in order to perceive the truth of this. We 
find that they flourish best in an atmosphere 
of intellectual freedom. They must be free 
from ecclesiastical dogma, while they strive to 
expose superstition and bring the mysterious 
within the domain of the known. They sub- 
ject individual opinion to the ordeal of public 
criticism by offering the prize of a scientific 
reputation to the discoverer of truth. Their 
mission is simply to find and state the truth ; 
and to this they know of no royal road but 
that which leads through original research, 
accurate observation, careful induction, and 
lucid statement. 

2. They acquaint us with natural law and 
with nature. The sciences of nature can 
never content themselves with the mere 
amassing of observations, excepting as these 
constitute the foundation of inductive sci- 
ence. Not the facts, but their significance 
constitutes science. That significance is al- 
ways and everywhere law ; and that law, as 
we have seen, is as divine in the sphere of 
nature as the Decalogue is in the sphere of 



48 THE OUTSKIRTS OF 

morals.* The student of nature thus gets 
imbued with the truth that he lives in a 
world of law, moral as well as physical. 
But he also acquires a knowledge of the 
physical constitution of man and of the physi- 
cal universe, which wonderfully enlarges and 
satisfies his mind. 

3. They cultivate philosophical insight. 
This may be illustrated by taking any com- 
mon roadside plant. The unphilosophical 
observer notices it simply as a familiar ob- 
ject ; perhaps he knows its name and ad- 
mires its beauty ; but to the botanist it re- 
veals a world of thought. First, he observes 
its systematic position in the vegetable king- 
dom as an individual of a certain species, 
genus, family, order, etc. Second, considering 
its roots, stems, leaves, and flowers, their 
various parts, forms, and positions, he dis- 
cerns their mathematical and morphological 
relations, and his thought is thus led back 
to "the archetype to which all the modifica- 
tions of the root, stem, and leaf can be re- 
ferred/' that is, " to the original idea which 
presided at their construction.'' Third, look- 
ing at it physiologically and microscopically, 

* See first essay. 



PHYSICAL SCIENCE. 



49 



he considers the universal biological, chemi- 
cal, and physical laws under the government 
of which the plant grows and multiplies ; and 
thus it is brought into connection, not only 
with ail life, animal as well as vegetable, but 
also with astronomical law. Fourth, he con- 
siders it geographically, and is reminded of 
the causes which limit its vertical and hori- 
zontal distribution, such as the climate, na- 
ture of the soil, position, and the action of 
animals or of men upon it. Lastly, he con- 
siders the changes in its size, form, and color 
which may be brought about by its environ- 
ment. Thus this one common object ac- 
quires a philosophical significance almost 
universal. Again : the intelligent traveller is 
impressed with the grandeur of the Norwe- 
gian fjords ; he observes their number, 
their extent, and their intricate and precipi- 
tous shores. This is to him an interesting 
series of facts, but no more. Let a physical 
geographer observe the same phenomena, 
and they assume at once a much deeper and 
wider significance. In his eyes the fjords 
are merely prolonged valleys, once the beds 
of glaciers, but now overflowed by the sea. 
He attributes the complicated, arborescent 



50 



THE OUTSKIRTS OF 



coast-line to sedimentation, metamorphism, 
upheaval, and depression, followed by erosion 
and glaciation, that is, by the chemical and 
physical action of water and ice upon the 
peculiar structure and mineralogical compo- 
sition of the rocks; and he looks for the 
cause of these changes of surface and cli- 
mate in the earth's past and present cosmical 
relations. But he goes still further, and 
considers the effect of the depth of the fjord 
upon the character of its marine fauna, and 
the effect of the general features of the 
country upon its inhabitants, conditioning 
the character of their nourishment, employ- 
ment, and, to a certain extent, influencing 
their mental and moral habits, and even col- 
oring their national history. The fjords are 
thus no longer an isolated phenomenon, but 
a link in an endless chain of cause and effect, 
reaching through all time, space, and matter, 
and even extending to the human mind it- 
self. A person habituated to such courses of 
thought in regard to natural objects soon 
applies them to other objects, to questions 
in ethics, art, and history, and thus acquires 
a philosophical cast of mind ; and the deep 
significance of this will be still more manifest 



PHYSICAL SCIENCE. 



51 



if, as some have claimed, the physical world 
is governed by processes which are but analo- 
gous to those which prevail in the social, in- 
tellectual, and moral life of man. This philo- 
sophical insight into nature will furnish the 
student of man with the key to many prob- 
lems of a higher order. As Bacon tersely 
puts it, "naturall philosophy makes men 
deepe." 

4. Scientific studies produce intellectual 
humility. Knowledge of the vast and intri- 
cate machinery of nature calls our attention 
to our own ignorance, and we become intel- 
lectually humble just in proportion to the 
amount of our knowledge. Scientific men, 
alas ! are not always humble at heart ; but it 
would be difficult to find a scientific man of 
much experience, who is not childlike when 
he comes into the presence of Nature. Indeed, 
intellectual humility is an imperative condi- 
tion of progress in natural science. This is so 
true that the degree of any one's attainment 
in science may generally be measured by his 
acquisitions in this scholarly virtue. 

5. They teach method. This they do by 
means of their analyses, syntheses, and classi- 
fications. A recent German monograph will 



52 



THE OUTSKIRTS OF 



serve as an example. The author, having 
obtained from public and private collections 
many specimens of fossil sponges, publishes 
the results of his investigations. After giv- 
ing the literature, and showing the present 
state of science on the subject, he proceeds 
to describe the new genera and species which 
he discovered. For this purpose he had a 
number of microscopic sections made, which, 
when magnified, revealed not only the minute 
fibres and spicules, but also their varied and 
complicated structure. Based upon a care- 
ful study of these, and of the complete speci- 
mens, he gives a precise description of each 
species and genus, its name, zoological, geo- 
logical, and geographical position. Accom- 
panying each description is an engraving of 
the complete sponge and of the microscopic 
section; and, for purposes of comparison, 
engravings of the extant sponges of the same 
order are added. Having given a number of 
these minute analyses, he proceeds syntheti- 
cally to make out a table of the genera and 
species, showing their succession in time, 
their morphological and their presumable 
genetic relations. Finally, he adds an ana- 
lytical key in order to enable the student to 



PHYSICAL SCIENCE. 



53 



ascertain the name and position of any speci- 
men. Now no one can perform work of this 
kind, even on a small scale, without acquiring 
methodical habits of mind which will be in- 
valuable in the study of almost any subject or 
the pursuit of any object. And what is true of 
the methods of the palaeozoologist is equally 
true of those of the botanist, chemist, or phys- 
icist. 

6. They cultivate a scrupulous exactitude 
in observation and comparison, a habit of care- 
fully weighing probabilities, and a reserve of 
judgment. Inasmuch as the advancement of 
inductive science depends upon the accurate 
observation and comparison of phenomena, 
and upon the weighing of probabilities with 
a view of making sound inductions, these 
habits of mind are necessarily cultivated, and 
some of them may even extend their influence 
so far as to color the moral habits. 

7. They chasten and strengthen the imagi- 
nation. While scientific studies require for 
their successful pursuit the aid of imagination, 
they also exert a wholesome influence upon 
that faculty, and constantly recall it from its 
flights into the ideal back to the real. Sir 
David Brewster says of the imagination: 



54 



THE OUTSKIRTS OF 



"This faculty is of the greatest value in 
physical inquiries. If we use it as a guide 
and confide in its indications it will infallibly 
deceive us, but if we employ it as an auxiliary 
it will afford us the most invaluable aid. Its 
operation is like that of the light troops which 
are sent out to ascertain the strength and 
position of the enemy. When the struggle 
commences, their services terminate; and it 
is by the solid phalanx of the judgment that 
the battle must be fought and won/' De la 
Chapelle, a French mathematician, and a 
member of the Royal Society, in a work on 
geometry, published in 1765,* speaking of the 
influence of mathematical studies on the im- 
agination, says : " No man is born without a 
certain amount of imagination. Art and study 
enlarge our faculties, but do not give them to 
us. 

"Among the different kinds of imaginations 
which Nature has distributed among men, and 
which interest us, there are three : the strong, 
the beautiful, and the ordinary. In looking 
at nature we only perceive its exterior, while 

* De La Chapelle, Institutions de geometrie enrichies de notes 
critiques et philosophiques sur la nature et les developpemens de 
l'esprit hurnain avec un discours sur 1' 6tude des math6matiques. 4me 
edit. Paris, 1765. 



PHYSICAL SCIENCE. 



55 



a strong imagination penetrates into its in- 
terior. It is present, if we may use the ex- 
pression, at the working of the machinery, 
of which the weak imagination only sees the 
effects. A beautiful imagination can adorn 
an object with the divers beauties which 
Nature has scattered here and there on the 
infinite multitude of her productions. Struck 
by the least discord, she substitutes every- 
thing which tends to produce harmony, and 
removes or suppresses all that can impair 
it. As to the ordinary imaginations, they 
are lively without being warm. Inconstant, 
they emit but sparks whose light goes out 
at once. Such imaginations yield projects 
rather than products, and as they are incapa- 
ble of production, answer the purposes of 
imitation. What happens when education 
presents different objects to these different 
orders of minds ? Each imagination seizes 
that which corresponds most nearly to its 
nature, after having tried a little of every- 
thing which is not thus adapted to it. The 
ordinary imagination will alone be subjugated, 
and it will not be a great loss. Mathemati- 
cal studies (and all this holds largely true 
of scientific studies) would certainly render 



56 



THE OUTSKIRTS OF 



good service to literature if they substituted a 
careful and exact judgment for a weak and 
sterile imagination. We fail, therefore, to 
see any danger in the pursuit of mathemati- 
cal studies. They are the element of the 
strong imaginations and the grave of the 
weak ones. The beautiful ones can dispense 
with them." This last statement of our 
author needs modification, for beautiful im- 
aginations require the very culture which 
will tend to strengthen and deepen them ; 
and it has been found that even those who 
devote themselves to the fine arts are benfited 
by the study of a certain amount of natural 
science. 

There is a difference of opinion as to 
whether the ancient Greek sculptors studied 
anatomy. It is, however, certain that their 
works show a remarkable understanding of 
nature. An art critic once said that if any 
one was to break off a toe from one of the 
Elgin marbles he would prove " the great 
consequences of vitality, as it acts externally, 
to exist in that toe." Salvage, in a work on 
"The Anatomy of the Fighting Gladiator," 
for the use of sculptors and painters,* says : 

* Jean G-albert Salvage, Anatomie du Gladiateur combattant 
applicable aux Beaux. Arts. Paris, 1812. 



PHYSICAL SCIENCE. 



57 



" It is only when the scholar has by several 
degrees attained, to drawing from the living 
model, and copies it well, that, by virtue of 
his success, he encounters obstacles till then 
unknown. The articulations, the muscles 
which cause them to act, the forms which 
they present on certain occasions, and their 
depression at others, bar his progress. Then 
he needs to study anatomy both in books and 
in nature. As soon as he does this his eyes 
are opened, his doubts vanish, his errors are 
corrected, and his difficulties are almost over- 
come. In the delight which he experiences 
from his new acquirements he goes back to 
the antique ; there he admires the beauty of 
nature supported by a fine bony framework 
covered with great muscles. In studying the 
Hercules Farnese, the Laocoon, the Gladia- 
tor, the Apollo, and the Venus de Medici, 
he notices, to his surprise, that there has 
been a perfect rivalry between art and science 
in the production of these masterpieces." In 
another place the same author adds : "The 
most gifted minds, who, while trusting to the 
caprices of the imagination, disdain to con- 
sult nature, of which the antique is but a 
perfect imitation, and who refuse to study 



58 



THE OUTSKIRTS OF 



the beautiful forms which anatomy shows in 
all their relations, will soon be led astray. 
In vain will their most brilliant compositions 
shine with rich accessories ; they will be 
defective as long as they are without that 
which constitutes sentiment and truth in the 
imitative arts. But a noble genius, enlight- 
ened by the torch of science and made fertile 
by meditation, will never depart from the 
unvarying rules of the beautiful." 

Scientific and humanistic views of nature 
are well illustrated by a German architect, in 
an address delivered before the Industrial 
Art Union of Munich, on " The Influence of 
Art and Industrial Art upon the Education 
of the Imagination." * He says : " I give to 
my understanding and to my imagination the 
same object of thought in order that each 
may attach to it the train of thought which 
it suggests to it. For example, let us take a 
spring. In considering it the understanding 
says : This spring is the outlet of a sub- 
terranean reservoir. Its composition is con- 
ditioned by the chemical composition of the 

* J. Von Schmsedel, architect, Uber den Einflusz der Kunst nrd 
des Kunsthandwerkes auf die Erziehung der Phantasie. Zuitschiift 
des Kunst-G-ewerbe-Vereins. Nos. 3-6. Munich, 1877. 



PHYSICAL SCIENCE. 



59 



earth with which the water has come in con- 
tact. Its volume depends upon certain me- 
chanical and physical conditions, etc. In 
short, the course of thought which the under- 
standing attaches to this object concerns 
merely those things which are absolutely 
comprehensible, and which stand in immedi- 
ate and logically demonstrable connection 
with the object itself. Now let us hand 
over the same object to the imagination, and 
it would suggest some such poem as that by 
Schwind, in which the spring is brought into 
connection with human joy and sorrow. How 
he leads us on in it to holy joy and delight 
and touches our heart strings." Our minds 
need both kinds of culture, if w r e would attain 
to intellectual symmetry. We must know 
truth of nature as well as truth of man, if we 
would maintain the equilibrium between the 
understanding and the imagination. But 
when we weigh these two methods of viewing 
nature, while we shall always enjoy the ar- 
tistic and poetic method, we shall in the end 
prefer the method of the naturalist, certainly 
as a foundation for thought, and say with 
Wordsw r orth, "To the solid ground of Nature 
trusts the mind which builds for aye/' Not 



60 THE OUTSKIRTS OF 

that we would let the din of Nature's machin- 
ery silence the voice of Poetry within us ; but 
rather let a thorough knowledge of nature 
minister to a deeper poetic sentiment. Every 
geologist can testify that a knowledge of 
geology adds immensely to the merely aes- 
thetic enjoyment of nature. When we have 
studied a group of mountains or any tract of 
country, physiographically, geologically, and 
palaeontologically, we make it in a peculiar 
sense our intellectual possession, and enter 
into a depth of communion with nature and 
with the mind revealed in nature which is as 
the nut to the shell, when compared to the sat- 
isfaction which we derive from subjecting the 
same objects to our mere imaginations, how- 
ever highly cultivated. The value of some 
of Leonardo da Vinci's writings on art is im- 
perishable because they combine real knowl- 
edge of nature with artistic perception. The 
same spirit pervades some of the works of 
Tennyson, of whom an American chemist 
justly says: "The poet laureate of England 
has drawn a deeper inspiration from nature 
interpreted by science than any of his pred- 
ecessors of the classical school." Chalmers 
describes the effect of scientific study upon 



PHYSICAL SCIENCE. gj 

the imagination with his usual weight and 
richness of language : " It is thus that at the 
commencement of the observational process 
there is the abjuration of beauty. But it soon 
reappears in another form, and brightens as 
we advance, and at length there arises on 
solid foundation a fairer and goodlier system 
than ever floated in airy romance before 
the eye of genius. Nor is it difficult to 
perceive the reason of this. What we dis- 
cover by observation is the product of divine 
imagination, bodied forth by creative power 
into a stable and enduring reality. What we 
devise by our own ingenuity is but the product 
of human imagination. The one is the solid 
archetype of those conceptions which are in 
the mind of God ; the other is the shadowy 
representation of those conceptions which are 
in the mind of man. It is just as with the 
laborer, who, by excavating the rubbish which 
hides and besets some noble architecture, 
does more for the gratification of our taste 
than if by his unpractised hand he should 
attempt to regale us with plans and sketches 
of his own. And so the drudgery of experi- 
mental science, in exchange for that beauty 
whose fascination it withstood at the out- 



62 THE OUTSKIRTS OF 

set of its career, has evolved a surpassing 
beauty among the realities of truth and na- 
ture." * 

8. Scientific studies cultivate an accurate 
use of language. The accuracy of state- 
ment and the nicety of definition, which so 
largely constitute the value of scientific 
papers, are most excellent correctives of the 
rhetorical habits which humanistic studies 
are very apt to form, unless far pursued. 
The general aim of Science is to cultivate 
what we may very appropriately term the 
eloquence of truth as contained in facts ; and 
what is more significant than a fact, be it in 
nature, history, or religious life ? She abhors 
the language of enthusiasm, and seeks to 
embody solid matter in few words ; so that we 
are led to a literary result akin to that to 
which a thorough study of the classics would 
also lead us, which is simplicity of style. 

Finally, this spirit of investigation, knowl- 
edge of natural law and of nature, this philo- 
sophical insight, intellectual humility, method, 
exactitude in observation and comparison^ this 
habit of carefully weighing probabilities, this 

* Natural Theology : "On Man's Partial and Limited Knowledge 
of Divine Things." 



PHYSICAL SCIEXCE. 



63 



reserve of judgment, chastened anal strength- 
ened imagination, and this accurate use of 
language are valuable in the first place and 
chiefly, on account of their intrinsic excel- 
lence ; and, secondly, because they render 
their possessor a source of power and good, 
influence. Our country needs such minds in 
all the public walks of life : in the pulpit, in 
medicine, in the editorial chair, at the bar, in 
the legislative assembly, in commerce, agri- 
culture, literature, education, and of course in 
all those professions and occupations which 
require technological preparation. Less dog- 
matism and more disposition to search and 
understand the real nature of things human 
and divine would become some of our theo- 
logians. A more chastened rhetoric would 
add force to some of our popular sermons. 
A more disinterested love of medical science, 
more thoroughness in diagnosis and in treat- 
ment, are needed in the medical profession. A 
deeper reverence for truth, and more concise 
language would render our popular books and 
newspapers more instructive. Our legisla- 
tors would be benefited by a deeper knowl- 
edge of the laws which govern finance and 
commerce ; the judgment of our merchants 



64 THE OUTSKIRTS OF 

would be more sound ; our agriculturists 
would be more scientific, and none the less 
practical ; our educators would deal more 
with vital knowledge, and better understand 
the minds and bodies committed to their 
care ; our railroads would be managed with 
greater security to human life ; our manu- 
facturers would not waste so much capital in 
needless experiment. In short, souls, minds, 
bodies, and property would be better cared 
for. 

To recapitulate : we have seen that physi- 
cal, intellectual, and moral culture constitute 
education in the true sense ; we have seen 
that in a complete and symmetrical intellect- 
ual education the sciences ought to occupy 
a prominent place with the humanities and 
with Christian ethics and religious philosophy. 
As to their use, we have seen, that, by the 
discipline and information which they impart, 
the sciences are not only calculated to pro- 
duce a very high order of intellectual culture, 
but also to exert a beneficent influence upon 
every sphere of thought and action ; and it 
would not be easy to enumerate the vast con- 
sequences of special scientific study to civili- 
zation, both in the advancement of science 



PHYSICAL SCIENCE. 



65 



and in the increase of wealth and physical and 
social well-being. 

There may be a question as to the relative 
position to be assigned to the sciences in a 
college course. Undoubtedly classical studies 
afford an excellent and invaluable literary 
preparation for the successful pursuit of more 
advanced scientific studies ; but the legitimate 
results of such a broad education as that 
delineated will not be reached in the ordinary 
curriculum, unless full justice is done to the 
sciences by just as thoroughly preparing the 
student, through an early acquaintance with 
elementary science, for original scientific in- 
vestigations as he is now prepared, by early 
drill in the elements of classical learning, for 
the more philosophical stucy of ancient liter- 
ature. This will not be accomplished by 
deferring the study of nature to the end of a 
college course, when for lack of time it must 
be pursued in a very superficial way. The 
study of nature ought to be begun in child- 
hood ; and this can be very easily done, be- 
cause it appeals to the understanding through 
the eye. On this account it is much more 
appropriate for even some older children 
than the study of grammar which involves 



66 THE OUTSKIRTS OF 

difficult metaphysical conceptions at the out- 
set. We must apply not literary but scien- 
tific methods to the study of the sciences in 
order to bring the student's mind in contact 
with Nature herself. The phenomena must 
be placed before the student first, the termi- 
nology and the laws afterwards. While he 
thus studies nature, he himself becomes scien- 
tific, which is a more valuable educational 
result than the mere acquisition of knowl- 
edge. Instead of making scientific studies, 
as is the case in some of our institutions, 
merely optional, so that students with literary 
aptitudes escape the scientific culture which 
they need, these as well as classical studies 
ought to be made obligatory upon all. Fi- 
nally, the teacher must himself have studied 
nature, or he cannot teach others about na- 
ture. Education may thus even in its ele- 
mentary stages be pursued upon the most 
advanced principles. But it will not be diffi- 
cult, having once accepted a sound philoso- 
phy of education, to find ways of putting it 
into practice. 

When these principles are put into prac- 
tice, and by that is to be understood all 
that has been claimed for physical, moral, 



PHYSICAL SCIEXCE. 



6 7 



scientific, humanistic, and theological culture, 
we shall be able to look forward to the edu- 
cated men and women of the future with 
great expectations. For they will not only 
have every side of their nature developed to 
the highest point of efficiency and symmetry, 
not only will they be conversant with the 
whole circle of knowledge, but they will also 
be able to meet the actual needs of society ; 
because their education will have been based 
upon the whole nature of man, and upon that 
of the world in which he lives. And such an 
education will furnish them also with powerful 
incentives to go and do the work which the 
world has for them to do. 



ON THE 



Interpretation of the First Chapter 



BOOK OF GENESIS. 



TO BIBLICAL AND GEOLOGICAL STUDENTS. 



11 The sacred Scriptures are not a course of physics, they 
do not employ the language of science, still less that of any 
particular system ; . . . but they do teach, and that o?i every 
page and by every meaiis, that the heave?is declare the glory of 
their Author." — Victor Cousin. 

" To conclude, therefore, let no man out of a weak conceit 
of sobriety, or an ill-applied moderation, thi?ik or maintain, 
that a man can search too far or be too well sttidied in the 
book of God's word, or in the book of God^s works; divinity 
or philosophy ; but rather let men endeavor a?i endless pro- 
gress or proficience in both" — Bacon, Advancement of 
Learning. 

Genesis i. 1-31 ; ii. 1-3; Exodus xx. I— II. 

THE Book of Genesis is now generally 
supposed to be the work of at least two 
if not three separate authors, neither of whom 
probably was the compiler of the whole book. 
Exactly what part of the work, if any, is to 
be ascribed to Moses, and at what time the 
original documents were framed or the com- 
pilation was made, are still matters of con- 
troversy among eminent Biblical scholars.* 

* The possibility of a double authorship was first pointed out by a 
French physician, J. Astruc, in a work entitled Conjectures sur le3 
memoires originaux d'ont il est permis de croire que Aloise s'est 
servi pour composer le livre de la G-enese avec de.3 remarques qui 
appuient ou 6claircissent ces conjectures. Bruxelles, 1753. See on 
the question of authorship and compilation, and for the literature : 
Frz. Delitzsch, Conimentaruber die Genesis. 4th edit. Leipzig, 1872. 
C. Frdr. Keil. Genesis u. Exodus. 3d edit. Leipzig, 1878. August 
Dillmann, Die G-enesis. 4th edit. Leipzig, 1S82. 



72 



THE OUTSKIRTS OF 



Some of the reasons for these suppositions 
and uncertainties are, that different styles of 
expression, of names for the Divinity, and 
different accounts of the same events, charac- 
terize portions of the book ; that a tradition 
of the flood, in some respects similar to the 
Bible narrative, was current in Babylonia 
before the time of Moses, probably as early 
as 2000 B. C. ; and, finally, that a careful 
comparison of the book with other parts of 
the Old Testament raises a question as to the 
time of its compilation. Was the cosmogony 
at the beginning of Genesis brought from 
Chaldea in the form of a sacred tradition by 
Abraham when he migrated from Ur? May 
we infer from the high state of civilization 
and literature in the midst of which Moses 
was educated that he had something to do 
with the book ? What exactly were the rela- 
tions of the original narratives of Genesis to 
the Babylonian and Iranian traditions ? All 
these are highly interesting questions, which, 
however, it seems scarcely prudent for any one 
at present to answer in a dogmatic spirit. 
But however much of mystery may surround 
the authorship and compilation of the book, 
it is evident that some of its traditional sources 



PHYSICAL SCIENCE. 



73 



date back to the time of the patriarchs, and 
others even to a far more remote antiquity.* 
The vast moral and spiritual superiority as 
well as the marked simplicity of this cosmog- 
ony, compared with those of other nations 
of high antiquity, cannot be questioned.! 

Moses lived, according to various chronolo- 
gies, between 1,600 and 1,300 years before 
Christ, or between 3,200 and 3,500 years ago. 
Some chronologies would place the creation 
of man 6,000 or 7,000 years ago ; but Bun sen's 
estimate places it about 22,oco years ago,J 
and geological history carries us back to un- 
told ages before the appearance of man. The 
opening sentences of the Book of Genesis are 

* See on these subjects, Eberh. Schrader, Die Keilinschriften und 
das Alte Testament. Mit eineni Beitrage von Dr. Paul Haupt. 2d edit. 
Giessen, 18S3. A. Dillmann, UberdieHerkunft derurgeschichtlichen 
Sagen der Hebriier. In the Sitzungsberichte der Kgl. preuszischen 
Akademie der Wissenscbaften zu Berlin, No. 18-22, 1882. Translation 
in the Bibliotheca Sacra for July, 1883. Francois Lenormant, Les 
Origiues de L'histoire d'upres la Bible. Paris, 1882. Translation 
N. Y. 1882. Pa if Haupt, Der Keilinschriftliche Sintnuthbericht, 
eine Episode des Babylonischen Nimrcdepos. Leipzig, 1880. Ab- 
stracts of the last two works in the Bib. Sacra, July, 1883. 

| See Dillmann, Genesis, pp. 4-10, 14. 

% Dr. H. Brugsch-Bey, in his History of Egypt under the Pha- 
raohs (transl. London, 1881, 2d edit.), gives cautiously the year 4400 
B. C. as the dale of the First Dynasty or the commencement of the 
historic period in Egypt. This would take us back 6,280 years to a 
period which must have been preceded by many centuries of primi- 
tive social development. On the other hand, Rev. Geo. Kawlinson, in 
his Origin of Xations (1877), places the probable date of the rise of 
monarchy in Egypt as late as 2450 B. C. 



74 



THE OUTSKIRTS OF 



not only among the earliest Biblical writings, 
but they, together with the twentieth chap- 
ter of Exodus, which contains the language of 
Moses himself, convey to us nearly all that 
Biblical authors have to say of a definite char- 
acter on the origin of the earth and its organ- 
isms. These writings come to us fragrant 
with highly ancient and sacred associations, 
and lead our thoughts back through all the 
primitive history of man and of nature to the 
infinite Being Himself. 

In order to apprehend the significance of 
such writings we must not only place ourselves 
in the intellectual and moral attitude called 
for by the vast and exalted nature of the sub- 
ject of which they treat, but we must also 
find a key to the language of the records. 
These will be found indicated, the writer be- 
lieves, in the following four principles of in- 
terpretation. 

Firstly. Written language must be under- 
stood as meaning primarily what it meant to 
the persons for whom it was first written. 
The actual significance of the words at the 
time must take precedence of their possible 
philosophical significance. In order to ascer- 
tain this we should not only possess an accu- 



PHYSICAL SCIENCE. 



75 



rate knowledge of the grammar and genius of 
the original, but we should also make ourselves 
familiar with the modes of thought current 
in the country where, among the people with 
whom, and at the time when the writings 
originated. We should transport ourselves 
in imagination to those distant times and 
lands, and live the life of those archaic 
peoples. The absurdity of applying Anglo- 
Saxon methods of thought to the interpreta- 
tion of Oriental ones is apparent, nor need we 
go any farther than our houses of Christian 
worship to listen sometimes to an equally 
incongruous mixture of Orientalisms and 
Americanisms. A thorough knowledge of 
the original is the hard-won privilege of few ; 
but an acquaintance with Eastern habits of 
thought, which in this case is of equal if not 
greater importance, is more readily obtained. 
We should also ascertain to what class of 
people the words were addressed, whether to 
the learned or the common people, and thus 
determine whether the language is to be 
understood in a scientific or abstruse sense, 
or in the sense of ordinary narration or inter- 
course. Coleridge answers the latter question 
thus: "On moral subjects the Scriptures 



j6 THE OUTSKIRTS OF 

speak in the language of the affections which 
they excite in us; on sensible subjects, 
neither metaphysically, as they are known by 
superior intelligences, nor theoretically, as 
they would be seen by us were we placed in 
the sun ; but as they are represented by our 
human senses in our present relative posi- 
tion."* 

Tayler Lewis makes this matter very clear: 
" Words present images, or conceptions. 
Images or conceptions (or in other words 
phenomena) re-present the ultimate facts that 
stand away behind them. Thus all language 
is mainly if not wholly phenomenal. But 
here again arise three distinctions. There 
is the simply phenomenal, the scientific, and 
the poetical. . . . The first employs only 
those appearances which present themselves 
directly and primarily,, or as we might say, 
spontaneously, to the sense, — that are alike 
in all men, and thus directly represent for all 
men the ineffable fact standing behind them 
at however remote a distance. . . . The object 
of the first is simply to give the more vivid 
thought of the ineffable fact as a fact with- 

* Aids to Reflection. 



PHYSICAL SCIENCE. 



77 



out reference to its philosophy. The object 
of the second is to explain the relation of phe- 
nomena to each other, and if possible ... to 
trace their connection all the way up to the 
great ultimate truth or agency they represent. 
The design of the third is not only to give a 
clear thought, like the first, but to connect with 
it some strong emotion."* The term "poetic" 
may also be applied to language which, while 
not calculated to excite the feelings, yet for 
artistic purposes employs images which are 
not necessary for the mere representation of 
phenomena. In a word, we should have just 
and clear ideas as to the language of Scripture. 
Secondly. Granting, therefore, that the 
language of Scripture in regard to nature 
is both Oriental and phenomenal, it must not 
be overlooked that phenomenal language is 
only phenomenally correct. The scientific 
aspect of nature is alone physically true. 
Thus when we say, 'The sun rises,' we de- 
scribe a phenomenon in popular or phe- 
nomenal language ; but if w T e wish to describe 
the same phenomenon in scientific language, 
we say, 'The earth in revolving on its axis has 



* The Six Days of Creation, Schenectady, 1855, pp. 41,42 



78 



THE OUTSKIRTS OF 



brought us within sight of the sun/ The 
last statement implies and conveys some 
knowledge of the constitution of nature, but 
the first does not. Therefore, as the Bible 
cosmogony deals with nature, we must, in 
order to an intelligent apprehension of the 
subject, bring to its study a scientific ac- 
quaintance with nature. 

Thirdly. We must also be in sympathy 
with the general object of Scripture, which 
is not primarily to reveal to us the laws of 
nature, and build up the intellectual man, 
but to reveal the divine character, and re- 
store to man the divine image. Indirectly 
our minds will of course be enlarged and 
awakened as, indeed, our whole nature be- 
comes purified and stimulated by a personal 
knowledge of God ; and Bible truth is neces- 
sarily interwoven with much of history, geo- 
graphy, literature, and nature, for it is humane 
as well as divine ; but the aim of the book is 
a religious and moral one, for religion and 
morals are at the centre of human nature. 
We must, therefore, bring to the study of this 
portion of Scripture a God-loving mind. 

Fourthly. But religious sentiment without 
religious principle and thought is as unable 



PHYSICAL SCIENCE. 



79 



to stand the strain from within and without 
as a house without a framework. We must 
have some doctrinal and philosophical basis 
which shall be broad enough and strong 
enough to support the whole structure of 
religious and scientific truth as well as 
anchor our own faith and reason. Such a 
foundation has been exhibited.* In nature 
we see some of tlie institutions of the divine 
mind ; in Revelation we learn to know the 
moral laws which proceed from the divine 
character. 

Accepting these principles of interpreta- 
tion, there seems less difficulty in arriving at 
a satisfactory understanding of the first chap- 
ter of Genesis. 

The earth and life are represented to us 
as having been created in u six" days; 
and in the twentieth chapter of Exodus 
the same statement is repeated and serves 
as a basis for the Sabbatic Commandment. 
Exodus xx. contains the oldest form in 
which the Decalogue has been transmitted, 
and is of Mosaic authorship. f The reason 
there assigned for the observance of the 

*See first essay. 

f Sec- Franz Delitzsch, Der Dekalogin Exodus und Deuteronomiura. 
Zeitschrift fiir Kirchliche Wfeoendchaft und Kircliliches Leben. 
Heft VI. Leipzig, 1882. 



80 THE OUTSKIRTS OF 

Sabbath, because of its difference from that 
given in Deut. v., has been thought by 
some modern critics to be a later interpola- 
tion ; but Delitzsch shows that there is no 
ground for such a supposition, and that there 
is no conflict between the two passages. In 
Exod. xx. 1 1 the divine example is given as a 
reason for the observance, whereas in Deut. v. 
14, 15, the humane treatment of servants, as 
flowing out of that observance, is inculcated 
and followed by a reference to Israel's rec- 
ollection of Egyptian servitude. We thus find 
Moses teaching and believing the substance 
of the first cosmogony, and incorporating it 
in the Decalogue. Its claim to inspiration 
would thus seem to rest on as strong a foun- 
dation as that of the Commandments them- 
selves. 

We find that numbers were used among 
Eastern nations in two ways : first, in a de- 
terminative sense, as in our ordinary use of 
numbers, to indicate order and quantity ; 
second, in a representative or indeterminate 
sense. Thus we use the numbers 12, 20, 100, 
or 1,000 when we wish to denote not an exact 
number, but to convey the idea of a few, 
many, or a multitude ; and the Hindoos at 



PHYSICAL SCIENCE. 8 1 

the present day use in a similar way the 
figures 2 -20 and 5-50 to denote a lesser 
or greater indefinite number.* Numbers 
may not only be thus employed to represent 
an indeterminate quantity r , but they may be 
made to convey also the idea of quality, and 
so acquire a symbolical significance. The 
Eastern aversion to exact numerical state- 
ment, though arising largely from supersti- 
tion, is yet indicative of a type of mind very 
different from ours. Burckhardt says : " For 
the same reason that a Bedouin never counts 
the tents of his tribe, nor the exact number 
of his sheep, nor a military chief the exact 
number of his men, nor a governor the number 
of inhabitants of his town, a merchant never 
attempts to ascertain the exact amount of his 
property ; an approximation only is all that 
he desires. This arises from a belief that 
counting is an ostentatious display of wealth, 
which Heaven will punish by a speedy dimi- 
nution." f The truth to which this supersti- 
tion points is indicated in David's counting 
his men of war. % 

* Stated "by Rev. C. W. Park, lately a missionary in India, 
f J. L. Burckhardt, Travels in Arabia, London, 1829, Vol. L 
pp. 74, 75. 
X II Sain. xxiv. 



82 THE OUTSKIRTS OF 

The most casual reader of the Bible is 
familiar with the frequent occurrence of the 
numbers 7, 10, and 12. That these were 
used in the Book of Revelation in a symboli- 
cal sense is well understood ; but that num- 
bers at the other end of the Bible may have 
had a similar significance has not been 
generally admitted in recent times. 

The allegoric and Platonistic vagaries of 
Philo Judaeus * (born at Alexandria, 20-50 
B. C.) have been justly discarded ; but it is 
possible that as his doctrine of the Logos 
contains the intellectual semblance of a 
fundamental New Testament truth, so may 
perhaps his understanding of the Bible cos- 
mogony throw light upon it: "And he 
(Moses) says that the world w r as made in 
six days, not because the Creator stood in 
need of a length of time, . . . but because the 
things created required arrangement ; and 
number is akin to arrangement ; and, of all 
numbers, six is, by the laws of nature, the 
most productive : for of all the numbers from 
the unit upwards, it is the first perfect one, 
being made equal to its parts, and being 



*See F. W. Farrar, The Early Days of Christianity, London, 
18S2, Chaps. XII. -XIV. 



PHYSICAL SCIENCE. 



83 



made complete by them ; the number three 
being a half of it, and the number two a 
third of it, and the unit a sixth of it, etc. . . . 
It was fitting, therefore, that the world, being 
the most perfect of created things, should be 
made according to the perfect number, namely, 
six. * 

" But after the whole world had been com- 
pleted according to the perfect nature of the 
number six, the Father hallowed the day fol- 
lowing, the seventh, praising it and calling it 
holy." f " And it (the number seven) is 
honored by those of the highest reputation 
among both Greeks and barbarians, who de- 
vote themselves to Mathematical Science." % 
He also speaks of the "beauty" and "di- 
vine dignity " of number seven, and gives at 
great length certain astronomical, musical, 
arithmetical, geometrical, and physiological 
reasons for that significance ; he also men- 
tions in the same connection Solon's di- 
vision of human life into periods of seven 
years. 

In the year 415 Augustine devoted a chap- 

* Fhilo Judgeus, De mundi creatione secundum Mosen, Transl. 
by C. D. Yonge, London, 1S64, Sect. in. 
flbid., Sect. XXX. 
J Ibid., Sect. XLin. 



84 THE OUTSKIRTS OF 

ter in one of his treatises on Genesis to 
what he calls "The perfection of number 
six. * 

He divides numbers into these three classes, 
the less than perfect, the perfect, and the more 
than perfect, according as the sum of their 
even quotients is less than, is equal to, or ex- 
ceeds the original number. Thus 4 may be 
divided into J and j- , but 2 -f- 1 = only 3, and 
4 is therefore less than perfect; 12 maybe 
divided into ^ , f, f , §, and f-, but 1+4 + 3 
+ 6 + 2 = 16, and 12 is therefore more than 
perfect ; but 6 may be divided into f , §, §, 
and 1 + 3+2 = 6, and therefore 6 is a per- 
fect number. Six is the first number in the 
series in which this occurs, the next one 
being 28. Then he argues : " We must not 
say, therefore, that six is a perfect number 
because God perfected his works in six days, 
but that God perfected his works in six days 
because six is a perfect number, "f 

In regard to number seven he writes : 
" For if, by the number six, the creature 
was to be perfected as it was perfected, and 



* De Grenesi ad Litteram, Lib. quartus, Cap. II. Be senarii 
Humeri perfection e. 

t Ibid., Lib. quartus, Cap. VII. § 14. 



PHYSICAL SCIENCE. 85 

that rest of God was to be commended to us, 
which rest would be shown to be unblessed 
with perfect creatures, undoubtedly the day 
which follows the sixth was the one to be 
made blessed by this commendation."* 

Dr. Baehr, " evangelical " pastor at Eich- 
stetten in Baden, in 1837, published a very 
instructive book on "The Symbolism of the 
Mosaic Worship,"! in which he says: "It 
is an historical fact that there was no nation 
of antiquity which did not make a symbolic 
use of single numbers and forms as well as 
of number and measure in general. Every- 
where, among every ancient people, especially 
in the East, do we meet with an important 
science of numbers, most intimately con- 
nected with religion and worship. This fact 
is accounted for by the views of the world 
peculiar to all ancient peoples, which held the 
real as inseparable from the ideal, indeed, as 
its image and revelation. ":j: He gives the 
general reason for the use of number and 
measure in the smallest details of the taber- 



*rbid., Lib. quartus, Cap. XVI. §28. 

t Symbolik des "Mosaischen Cultus? von Karl Christ. Willi. Fel. 
Bahr. 2 vols. Heidelberg, 1S37. A 2d edit, of Vol. I. appeared in 
1874. 

% Ibid., Vol. I. Cap. II. § 2, pp. 129-131. 



86 THE OUTSKIRTS OF 

nacle : " If it was to be an image of the great 
world-building of the entire creation, and 
particularly as far as the same is a witness 
and revelation of God, so the first and most 
important requisite .was that it should be 
exactly defined by number and measure, that 
it should be measured throughout. For that 
quality of being measured is the proper di- 
vine element in and of the world, on account 
of which it is a witness, a revelation of God. 
And thisdefiniteness as to number and meas- 
ure was made prominent because this aspect 
of the creation was especially regarded in the 
tabernacle. Just this first gave the taber- 
nacle its character as a place of divine revela- 
tion."* And he then proceeds to give the 
significance of the different numbers which 
entered into the plan of the tabernacle : 
three, four, seven, etc. 

Three. "The world has three parts, the 
heaven, the earth, and sea; . . . time moves as a 
whole in past, present, and future, and in 
general every true whole in space and time 
has a beginning, middle, and end, so that 
the tripartiteness of all things was a recog- 
nized fact with the ancients. " f "As Mosa- 

* Bahr, Vol. I. Cap. II. § 1, p. 128. 
| Ibid., p. 142. 



PHYSICAL SCIENCE. 



87 



ism uses three to designate all perfect being, 
and therefore every whole one which has be- 
ginning, middle, and end, so three and thrice 
are used, here as everywhere else, in a 
proverbial sense. Whatever is to be done 
rightly, wholly, perfectly, occurs three 
times. Thus Jonathan tells David to come 
on the third day, when he will shoot 
ihree arrows ; Joseph incarcerates his brothers 
three days ; the darkness which Moses- in- 
voked over Egypt lasted three days ; three 
times a day was prayer offered (Ps. lv. 17, 
and Dan. vi. 10); Jonah remained three days 
in the fish, and Christ arose on the third 
day. But since the idea of oneness in con- 
nection with the idea of perfection coincided 
at first necessarily with, indeed, to a certain 
extent, was alone and originally the same as 
the idea of God, so thrice in Mosaism is the 
sign of the divine Being and of everything 
which stands immediately connected with 
Him or depends upon Him."* 

Four. " Four is the number of the ele- 
ments and of the regions of the earth ; and 
as all immeasurable space so every space 
extends itself in four directions ; therefore 

* Ibid., p. 156. 



88 THE OUTSKIRTS OF 

the existence of a body necessarily implies 
four dimensions. Four is, therefore, in gen- 
eral the number of corporality. But this 
number likewise underlies all divisions of 
time, morning, noon, evening, and midnight; 
and the year divides itself into four sea- 
sons."* Four winds are commonly spoken of. 

Seven. "As three is the symbol of Di- 
vinity, and four the symbol of the world, the 
significance of seven grows out of both. 
As three and four come together in seven 
forming one number, it is the sign of the 
union of God and the world. . . . The two 
conceptions of God and the world imply all 
religion : no matter how different their re- 
lation to one another may be, all religion 
revolves around them ; and the aim of religion, 
on the whole, is union, communion with God. 
While all symbolical numbers, as far as they 
indicate divine and human relations, and are 
used in any way for purposes of worship, are 
called in a general sense sacred numbers, 
seven is specially and in a proper sense the 
sacred number."! 

Now turning to Gen. i., we find the crea- 

* Bahr, Vol. I. Cap. II. § 1, pp. 155, 156. See also Moses Stuart, 
Com. on Apocalypse, Andover, 1845, Vol. II. p. 421. 
t Bahr, Vol. I., Cap. II. pp. 187, 188. 



PHYSICAL SCIEXCE. 



8 9 



tipn of 8 (2x4) objects or groups represented 
as taking place in 6 (2X3) days : — 

Darkness. The Spirit of God broods upon the Waters. 



1st Dav. Light (day), separated from darkness (night). ist Work. 

2d " Firmament, separating the waters underneath 

from those above. 2d " 

3d " Earth, separated from the seas. 3d " 

( Tender grass. 
Vegetation : / Herb yielding seed. 4th " 

( Fruit tree yielding fruit. 



4th " Heavenly Bodies, to lighten the day and the night. 
( Sun to rule the day. 
) Moon to rule the night. 5th 

( Stars also. 
5th M Water and Air Animals. 6th 

f Cattle. 
6th M Land Animals : ) Creeping animals. 7th 

( Eeasts of the earth. 
Man. 8th 



7th " God rested or ceased. 

The singular position of vegetation, separa- 
ted as it appears from the rest of the organic 
creation by the heavenly bodies, points to a 
peculiar notion of classification, and probably 
falls in with some numerical symbolism. We 
are, therefore, justified in drawing a line be- 
tween the third and fourth day and the fourth 
and fifth work. Perhaps the most reasonable 
explanation of this arrangement is that the 
author, adopting the current poetic conception 
of his time, regarded the heavenly bodies, on 
account of their movements, as in some sense 



9 o 



THE OUTSKIRTS OF 



animated beings.* Thus Ps. xix. 6 compares 
the sun to a bridegroom, Judges v. 20 rep- 
resents the stars as fighting in their paths 
against Sisera, Job xxxviii. 7 speaks of them as 
singing together, Isa. xl. 26, and xlv. 12, rep- 
resent the heavenly bodies as an army mar- 
shalled by the Highest, and Gen. ii. 1, which 
forms part of this cosmogony, refers to 
" the host " of the heavens, and so also does 
Ps.xxxiii.6. If this view be correct, the works 
of the first three days belong to the i7ia7ii- 
mate or motionless, those of the remaining 
three to the animate or moving creation. But 
as each section comprises four works, and as 
four is the symbol of corporality or of the 
world, so each section would stand for a world- 
body, the one inanimate, the other animate, 
and the three days assigned to each division 
would indicate the completeness of the time. 
The days are (2X3) 6. What was done well 
and thoroughly was done three times, and 
twice three times emphasizes that signifi- 
cance. Thus Joseph, in interpreting Pharaoh's 
dream, says : " And for that the dream was 
doubled unto Pharaoh twice ; it is because the 

* This is from E. E. Riehm, Der biblische Schopfungsbericht 
(a lecture), Halle, 1881, pp. 6, 7. 



PHYSICAL SCIENCE. q X 

thing is established by God, and God will 
shortly bring it to pass." (Gen. xli. 32.) It is 
also probable that six possessed a significance 
of its own. One explanation of this is given 
by Philo and Augustine, as quoted above ; 
but its purely mathematical character seems 
rather remote for popular usage, although the 
meaning they assign to the number seems 
reasonable. Six often occurs in connection 
with seven, and we may, by examining their 
relations, be able to determine the signifi- 
cance of the former. In Job v. 19 we read : 
" He shall deliver thee in six troubles, yea in 
seven there shall no evil touch thee." In 
Ezek. xlvi. 4 we find : " And the 'burnt offer- 
ing that the prince shall offer unto the Lord 
in the sabbath day shall be six lambs . . . 
and a ram." In Numb. xxxv. 6 six cities of 
refuge are appointed. In Exod. xxi. 2 : "If 
thou buy an Hebrew servant, six years he 
shall serve ; and in the seventh he shall go 
out free for nothing." Also in Exod. xxv. 31, 
32, the plan of the candlestick is given : six 
branches with one central light ; Jericho was 
compassed six times in six days, and seven 
times on the seventh day. When, on the 
seventh round of the seventh day, the seven 



9 2 



THE OUTSKIRTS OF 



priests who preceded the ark had blown on 
the seven trumpets, the walls fell ; and so in 
this chapter we have six days and a seventh. 
If seven denote harmony between God and 
man, that is, what is religious and sacred, we 
shall not be far from the truth if we infer 
from the use of six in the above passages 
that - it signified completeness, sufficiency, 
or divineness with special reference to the 
earthly, the secular, the natural. Thus in- 
terpreted the passage in Job would read : 
'In the greatest temporal troubles He shall 
deliver thee, yes, even in the greatest moral 
danger no evil shall touch thee.' The law 
in regard to the liberation of slaves would 
signify on the. one hand the completeness of 
the discharge of the debt of servitude, on the 
other the sacredness of liberty. The six 
branches of the candlestick may symbolize 
the perfection of God's creation ; the seventh, 
His moral perfection or holiness. It was the 
sacred power of seven as distinguished from 
the completeness of six which tumbled the 
walls of Jericho. In like manner the six 
creative days bespeak the completeness of the 
time and the divine character of the work, 
while the seventh indicates its moral or reli- 
gious consummation. 



PHYSICAL SCIENCE. 



93 



Have we not, then, in this cosmogony an 
illustration of the Oriental fondness for 
numerical symbolism ? Is not this work 
characteristic of that type of mind to which 
was committed, or which devised the numeri- 
cal plan of the tabernacle and its worship ? 
Is not this method of interpretation in accord 
with the genius of inspiration ? 

It is a well-known and interesting fact that 
the purest and truest of all natural religions, 
the Zoroastrian, had a cosmogony divided into 
six periods, corresponding to the six seasons 
of the Persian year, to which were assigned 
successively the creation of the heavens, the 
water, the earth, plants, animals, and man. 
That religion also divided the history of the 
conflict between the good and the evil divini- 
ties into two periods of 3,000 years each. 
The numerical and other resemblances be- 
tween these two cosmogonies are suggestive 
of their common origin, and the facts cer- 
tainly indicate the prevalence of the use of 
the numbers three and six in ancient reli- 
gious systems. The numbers six and seven 
occur also in the Babylonian narrative of 
the flood. 

But we are told that " in six days the Lord 



94 



THE OUTSKIRTS OF 



made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in 
them is." What are these much bewritten 
days ? That the word " day " signified, first of 
all, a solar day is evident from its use in the 
Sabbatic commandment, " Six days shalt 
thou labor and do all thy work " Did the 
author, then, intend to use it in the same sense 
when he adds : " For in six days the Lord 
made heaven and earth " ? If the language 
be regarded as of equal authority as the com- 
mandment with which it is connected, and so 
intended to convey to us the divine thought, 
it must have had a symbolical meaning, 
although its form may have been adapted to 
the infantile intellect of the race; " for the di- 
vine Scriptures have the habit of transferring 
words concerning human things to divine 
ones." * Augustine renders this passage : "In 
six human days do all thy work ; for in six di- 
vine days the Lord made heaven and earth." 
In other words, as God, after a period of crea- 
tive activity perfectly commensurate with the 
vastness of His work, nature, entered upon 
an era of sacred rest, so man, made to be 
the reflex of his Maker, ought, after finishing 

* Augustine, De G-enesi contra Manichaeos, Lib. I. Cap. XIV. 
§20. 



PHYSICAL SCIENCE. 



95 



all his work, the week of daily toil, to devote 
his Sabbath to a similar rest. The emphasis 
of the passage is not on the time but on the 
moral end in view ; and the metaphorical use 
of the word " day," in reference to the Creator, 
only makes this more forcible. The analogy 
is between God's example on an infinite scale 
and man's duty on a finite one. 

" As the work to the work, 
As the rest to the rest, 
So are the times to the times. " Augustine. 

The question here naturally arises whether 
the ancient Hebrews understood the six 
days in any such sense. It is certain 
that the Westminster divines did not. To 
this it may be replied, granting that the 
Hebrews took the same view of the matter 
as the authors of the Catechism : these would 
not be the only cases in which both the Jewish 
and the Christian church have fallen into the 
errors of the " letter," and failed to seize the 
u spirit " of Revelation. 

With the aid of these general observations 
we are prepared for a more minute examina- 
tion of the cosmogony. 

Without stopping to discuss the question 
whether the first verse contains simply an 



9 6 



THE OUTSKIRTS OF 



epitome of the events described in the follow- 
ing verses or an account of the origin of 
matter itself, preliminary to the history of its 
formative development,* it is sufficient for our 
present purpose to notice that the "making" 
of the visible cosmos is here ascribed to God, 
the personal cause of causes ; and in the nature 
of His relation to the world a broad founda- 
tion is laid for the moral law. Chaos is 
described as a deep with darkness resting 
upon it ; the Spirit of God moved or brooded 
upon the face of the waters, "and God said 
let there be light and there was light." To a 
person familiar with the outward aspect of na- 
ture the most important thing in the cosmos 
would naturally seem to be light, and the sep- 
aration of light and darkness appear as the first 
step in the introduction of order; moreover, it 
would appear that the Hebrews regarded light 
as separate from the sun. Thus Job xxxviii. 
19, 20 : " Where is the way where light dwell- 
eth ? and as for darkness, where is the place 
thereof that thou shouldest take it at the 
bound thereof, and that thou shouldest know 
the paths to the house thereof ?" and also 
xxvi. 10: "He hath compassed the waters 

* See Dillmann, Genesis, pp. 15, 16. 



PHYSICAL SCIENCE. 



97 



with bounds until the day and night come to 
an end."* Hence its place in the cosmogony, 
which happens to coincide with that assigned 
to it by modern physical discoveries and theo- 
ries. But that this is not revealed science is 
evident from the use of the words " day" and 
" night " in the same connection, and from the 
number of nights and days (evenings and 
mornings) occurring before the creation of 
the sun; for the separation of "day" and 
"night" in the phenomenal sense involves 
the existence of planets revolving around fiery 
suns ; and these planets must have passed out 
of an incandescent condition into a solid and 
dark one before the existence of night was 
possible. So that if the night of the fifth 
verse is to be understood phenomenally, either 
the sun must have been in existence (but that 
only appeared on the fourth day) or else the 
Hebrews thought of light and darkness, day 
and night, as independent of the sun, which is 
the correct view. Thus the passage speaks 
of daylight without regard to its physical 
source, just as, a little beyond, vegetation is 
considered apart from, indeed before, the light 

* The same idea recurs in Ps. lxxiv. 16 : " Thou hast prepared the 
light and the sun," 



9 8 



THE OUTSKIRTS OF 



and heat which were its indispensable pre- 
cursors. Infinite Wisdom looks with compla- 
cency upon His works, as we read in the 
fourth verse, and the evening and the morn- 
ing, that is, the beginning and the ending, 
constitute the first day. The commencement 
of the solar day was fixed at different times 
by different nations. With some it began 
at sunrise, with some at noon or midnight, 
and with still others, including the Hebrews, 
at sunset. Hence the inverted order here. 

The attention of the ordinary observer of 
nature would next be drawn by the sky. This 
was evidently regarded by the author and by 
the ancient Hebrews as a vast crystalline or 
metallic dome.* Thus Ex. xxiv. 10: "And 
they (Moses, Aaron, etc.) saw the God of 
Israel : and under his feet as it were a paved 
work of a sapphire stone, and as it were the 
body of heaven in clearness." Also Job 
xxxvii. 1 8 : " Hast thou with him spread out 
the sky, which is strong, and as a molten 
looking-glass." (Often the conception was as 
of a curtain or tent, as in Is. xl. 22, Ps. civ 2 )f 



* From Dillmann. 

f Pec Tayler Lewis, op. cit., p 53, for an explanation of this beau, 
tiful Hebrew conception of sunrise and sunset. 



PHYSICAL SCIEXCE. 



99 



This dome rested upon the highest hills, 
called " the pillars of heaven." Thus Job 
xxvi. ii : "The pillars of heaven tremble and 
are astonished at his reproof " ; and 2 Sam. 
xxii. 8: " Then the earth shook and trem- 
bled ; the foundations of heaven moved and 
shook, because he was wroth." Above this 
dome were waters (Ps. cxlviii. 4) : " Praise 
him, ye heavens of heavens, and ye waters 
that be above the heavens." This dome 
(firmament, expanse) was introduced in the 
midst of the waters of " the deep," and made 
a separation, some remaining above it, some 
below, forming the terrestrial seas, and the 
atmosphere occupying the intervening space. 
The dome was provided with windows, " the 
windows of heaven " which being opened let 
down the superincumbent water as rain.* 
It is difficult to determine whether these 
were mere forms of speech or real concep- 
tions of the constitution of nature, for there 
are other passages in which the rain is de- 
scribed as coming from the clouds. Thus 
Job. xxvi. 8 : " He bindeth up the waters in his 
thick clouds ; and the cloud is not rent under 

* Gen. vii 11, viii. 2 ; 1 Kings viii. 35; 2 Kings vii. 2, 19; Ps. 
lxxviii. 23; Mai. iii. 10. 



IOO 



THE OUTSKIRTS OF 



them " ;* and xxxvd. 27, 28 : " For he maketh 
small the drops of water : they pour down rain 
according to the vapor thereof; which the 
clouds do drop and distil upon man abun- 
dantly." But here would come in also the 
question of the respective age of these differ- 
ent conceptions of nature. 

Then " the waters under the heaven " are 
separated from the land, and " earth" and 
" seas " are formed, but there are yet waters 
" under the earth." f 

Then vegetation appears, including fruit 
trees ; that is, the highest kind of vegetation. 
This alone makes a scientific interpretation 
impossible, for plants, with rare exceptions, 
require light and heat to sustain the chemi- 
cal action involved in their constitution ; but 
we have it distinctly stated, if we apply a 
scientific standard to the language, that fruit 
trees, which belong to the highest order of 
plants, flourished prior to the existence of the 
source of heat and light, or, which is sub- 
stantially the same, prior to the present re- 
lations of the earth to the sun. Some have 



* See also 1 Kings xviii. 44, 45, and Job xxvi. 7, which are scientific 
enough for ordinary language to-day. 

+ Gen. vii. 11; xlix. 25; Exod. xx. 4; Ps. xxiv. 1, 2; cxxxvL 6. 



FHYSICAL SCIEXCE. 



IOI 



striven to meet this difficulty by supposing 
that the making of the great lights and set- 
ting them in the firmament of the heaven 
do not refer to the beginning of their ex- 
istence, but to their first appearance to a sup- 
posed observer on the earth as the mists 
which enveloped the planet cleared away. 
But this explanation only raises other objec- 
tions ; for, as just stated, we learn from the 
twelfth verse that the highest kind of vegeta- 
tion, that is, plants requiring sunlight to 
attain to perfection, flourished before these 
events ; but according to the geological 
record these plants did not appear until a 
relatively recent period, the later Cretaceous 
and Tertiary, so we have to suppose that the 
sun was not visible until the approach of 
Tertiary times, which, in view of the long 
series of plants and animals which existed 
before that time, is highly improbable. This 
difficulty as to vegetation is sometimes met 
by supposing that the author, being aware 
that some obscure plants could subsist in the 
dark, introduces vegetation before sunlight, 
and then overlaps events by continuing this 
thread of his narrative to its end in the per- 
fection of the vegetable kingdom in recent 



102 TIIE OUTSKIRTS OF 

times. But it may be urged that this knowl- 
edge ought also to have restrained him from 
writing so unscientific a history ; and, by sup- 
posing him to have knowingly perpetrated so 
gross an anachronism, we do violence to the 
simplicity and tenor of the narrative, and we 
also undermine its religious value. It is no- 
ticeable, in this connection, that the Persian 
cosmogony, which some scholars date as far 
back as 1500 B. C, places the creation of 
vegetation in its natural position. 

We have now reached the end of the third 
day. The process thus far has been mainly 
a series of separations : light from darkness, 
waters terrestrial from waters celestial, earth 
from seas ; the earth then brings forth vege- 
tation. 

On the fourth day sun, moon, and stars are 
set in the firmament to divide between, and 
rule the day and the night, to be for signs, 
seasons, days, and years, and to give light 
upon the earth. On the first day the separa- 
tion of day and night took place ; the lighting 
of the day and night is now provided for. 

On the fifth, aquatic animals and birds. 

On the sixth, mammals and creeping ani- 
mals, beasts of the earth, and also finally man, 



PHYSICAL SCIEXCE. 



!°3 



to whom is given dominion over the animals ; 
and in verse 27 we read : " So God created 
man in His own image, in the image of God 
created He him, male and female created He 
them " ; that is, not only was man distin- 
guished from animals by his superior intel- 
lectual endowment, but he was also given a 
moral nature resembling that of his Maker, 
and thus is allied to the divine. 

Thus in these six symbolical days, that is, 
in a succession of times completely adequate, 
the perfect heavens and the perfect earth, 
distributed into two groups representing the 
inanimate or motionless and the animate or 
moving creations, each complete in itself and 
of divine workmanship, were finished and all 
the host of them. 

And on the seventh symbolical day, indi- 
cating what is sacred, that is, the ideal moral 
harmony between God and man, God con- 
summated His work and entered, we may 
infer, upon the higher spiritual activities 
which the moral government of the souls He 
had called into existence imposed upon Him. 

In the following table the Bible and the 
scientific cosmogonies are placed side by side 
for comparison. The latter is based upon the 



104 



THE OUTSKIRTS OF 



nebular hypothesis, which is as scientific as 
any theory in reference to the earlier history 
of the cosmos, and upon the geological rec- 
ord which is well ascertained and valid for 
the later history of our planet. 

The numbers in both tables indicate the relative, but not the 
corresponding order of events in each account. 

1 he h iters in the tables of vegetable and animal life indicate 
both the relative and corresponding order. 



BIBLE COSMOGONY. 

1. Light 

2. Seas and atmosphere. 

3. Continents. 

4. Vegetation, including flow- 

ering plants. 

5. Sun, moon, and stars. 

6. Aquatic animals and birds. 

7. Land animals, cattle, and 

creeping animals. 

8. Man. 



SCIENTIFIC COSMOGONY. 

1. Chemical activity. 

Motion, heat, and light. 

2. Sun (Solar system). 

3. Earth formed. 

4. Moon formed. 

5. Earth solidifies and cools. 

Day and night begin. 

6. Seas and continents. 

7. Vegetable and animal 1 fe 

begin. 

Order of the Appearance of 
Life. 



Vegetable, 
a. Seaweeds. 



c. Ferns and 
pines. 

e. Flowering 
plants and 
palms. 

8. Man. 



A nimal. 

a. Lowest forms. 

b. Mollusks, cor- 

als, crusta- 
ceans. 
c» Fishes. 

d. Reptiles and 

birds. 

e. Mammals. 

/. Man. 



PHYSICAL SCIENCE, 



I05 



In comparing these, we notice on the one 
hand the difference between the order of the 
appearance of the sun and of vegetation, 
the latter occurring, according to the Bible 
account, not only before the sun, but even in 
its highest forms, before all animal life, where- 
as in fact the highest forms of vegetation 
did not appear until long after fishes, and but 
a very short time before mammals. On the 
other hand, there is a marked similarity in the 
order of the appearance of fishes, reptiles, 
mammals, and man, as well as in the first ap- 
pearance of light. 

It is evident that the two accounts cannot 
be parallelized. The one was manifestly 
written largely with only the aid of such a 
knowledge of nature as may be obtained by 
looking abroad at the sky with its orbs, and at 
the sea and land with their familiar animals 
and plants. The other is the result of the 
patient and laborious researches of many 
minds during scores of years. The one was 
written from the standpoint of the sacred 
poet, and with the aims of the religious 
teacher ; the other, from that of the student of 
natural law. Nor does this statement do 
violence to the integrity of the author ; for 



io 6 THE OUTSKIRTS OF 

it is only an assumption on the part of his 
readers that he intended to give, or supposed 
himself to be giving an absolute revelation of 
natural history. The facts are the same in 
both accounts, but their arrangement is differ- 
ent. In -the one they are made to form a 
series of images, and contribute significance 
to a system of numerical, religious sym- 
bolism ; in the other they are placed in 
their natural and historical sequence. 

Several important features of the cos- 
mogony remain to be noticed. As we have 
interpreted the days and the numbers sym- 
bolically, so we shall find ourselves obliged 
to treat the divine fiats. On this point, 
Aug-ustine remarks : " And when they hear, 
1 God said, let it be made, and it was made, 
they conceive of words begun and ended, 
sounding in time, and passing away, after 
whose departure, that came into being which 
was commanded so to do, and whatever, of 
the like sort, men's acquaintance with the ma- 
terial world would suggest. In w r hom, be- 
ing yet little ones and carnal, while their 
weakness is by this humble kind of speech 
carried as in a mother's bosom, their faith is 
wholesomely built up, whereby they hold 



PHYSICAL SCIENCE. 



I07 



assured that God made all those natural ob- 
jects which in admirable variety their eye 
beholdeth around. " (Confessions.), There 
were occasions in the history of our planet 
when either a new force was introduced or 
a new law instituted, as for instance when 
life began or when man appeared ; and be- 
tween such events there must have been vast 
periods of time during which the forces pre- 
viously set in motion were, under a God-given 
impulse, accomplishing their appointed task, 
and the time was ripening for the institution 
of some higher law. And such a series of 
periods of growth, alternating with moments 
of creation, is aptly and beautifully symbolized 
in the oft-recurring words : " And the even- 
ing and the morning were the first day," 
" And God said let there be and there was " ; 
but this is figurative language. According 
to Tayler Lewis the evening and the morning 
typify that cycle of growth and decay which 
all natural and religious processes seem to 
follow, and which, when complete, calls for a 
new life* 

Again we have the wonderful adaptations 
and mechanisms, the adornments of Nature, 

* Op. cit. } p. 241. 



108 THE OUTSKIRTS OF 

and her perfect obedience to law, signified in 
those words, "And God saw that it was 
good," with perhaps an implied contrast to 
man's disobedience and the moral disorder 
which sin brought.* 

There is one remarkable fact about this 
account. It describes to us in grandly sim- 
ple traits a progression of events : first mat- 
ter, secondly vegetable life, thirdly animal 
life, and lastly man, endowed with mind and 
conscience. And when we study the page 
of nature, we find the same events in the 
same general order. 

The following paragraphs embody opin- 
ions on the cosmogony from very different 
sources : — 

Haeckel, a pronounced unbeliever in a per- 
sonal God : "Two great and important fun- 
damental-ideas of the natural development 
theory stand out with surprising clearness 
and simplicity in the creation hypothesis of 
Moses : the idea of separation or differen- 
tiation and the idea of progressive develop- 
ment or perfection. Although Moses looks 
upon these laws ... as the immediate 

* See Lohr, Die Geschichte der heiligen Schrift vom Anfang der 
Dinge. Berlin, 1881. 



PHYSICAL SCIENCE. 



109 



agency of a Creator, still there lies concealed 
in his account the higher idea of a pro- 
gressive development and differentiation of 
originally uniform matter. We can, there- 
fore, pay to the magnificent understanding of 
nature shown by the Jewish lawgiver and to 
the simply natural language of his hypothesis 
of creation the tribute of our just and sincere 
praise, without seeing in it a so-called divine 
revelation."* 

Tayler Lewis : " In Genesis as in Reve- 
lation there is the same impression of a 
strange chronology th^t cannot be measured 
by any historical or scientific scale oat of its 
own movement. It is like distance in a pic- 
ture. It is there, but we cannot bring it 
either into miles or inches. It has succes- 
sion ; height appears beyond height, but there 
is no estimating the valleys, the immense 
valleys, it may be, that lie between."! 

Augustine : " I should have desired, verily 
had I then been Moses, . . . and been enjoined 
by Thee to write the book of Genesis, such a 
power of expression, and such a style, to be 

* E. Hackel, Xatiirliche Schopfungsgeschichte, 5th ed., Berlin, 
1874, pp. 34, 35. 

f Lange, Genesis, Am. edit., 1869, Special Introduction to Chap. 
I. p. 155. 



HO THE OUTSKIRTS OP 

given me, that neither they who cannot yet 
understand how God created, might reject the 
sayings, as beyond their capacity, and they 
who had attained thereto, might find what 
true opinion soever they had by thought ar- 
rived at, not passed over in those few words 
of Thy servant ; and should another man by 
the light of truth have discovered another, 
neither should that fail of being discoverable 
in those same words." (Confessions.) This, 
taken in connection with Haeckel's remark, 
is very suggestive. 

The author of the " Vestiges of the Natu- 
ral History of Creation": "I freely own 
that I do not think it right to adduce the 
Mosaic record, either in objection to, or sup- 
port of any natural hypothesis ; and this for 
many reasons, but particularly for this, that 
there is not the least appearance of an inten- 
tion in the book to give philosophically exact 
views of nature."* 

Lohr, pastor in Zirchow, calls attention to its 
parallelism and symmetry. The light-bearers 
of the 4th day corresponding to the light of 
the 1st day, the water and air animals of 
the 5th to the water and air of the 2d, the 

* American reprint, New York, 1845, p. 119. 



PHYSICAL SCIENCE. \\\ 

land animals of the first part of the 6th to 
the land of the first part of the 3d, and, finally, 
the man of the close of the 6th to the plants 
of the close of the 3d day — the highest of the 
animate to the highest of the inanimate crea- 
tion.* Further on he says : " This story, 
doubtless, originated intuitively. With just- 
ness to its character, it may be said to repro- 
duce the impression which the world made 
upon the childlike man of primitive times, be- 
fore his penetration had as yet been utterly 
obscured by sin. The story is a product of 
that primeval Chokmah, or wisdom, which 
saw things as they were, which knew all 
things, of course without yet knowing that it 
knew them ; and which, in course of time, lost 
itself, and became confined to a few chosen 
ones, until in Israel it again found a home 
and finally blossomed out in Solomon and 
his time."f 

Dr. Riehm : "In the interest of Bible-faith 
it should be finally admitted, without reserva- 
tion, that he who seeks information as to the 
external course of the formation of the world 
must address himself not to the Bible, but to 



* Op. cit., p. 35. 
jlbid., p. 39. 



II2 THE OUTSKIRTS OF 

the naturalist. Not secular knowledge but 
the truth of faith, is to be sought here."* 

Robertson : " Moses had not a scientific 
message to deliver ; but the marvel is this, 
that there is not one spiritual fact that can 
be overturned. The cosmogony of the Phoe- 
nicians was atheistical; so was that of the 
Egyptians ; in North America the Indians 
have a cosmogony not atheistical, but simply 
ludicrous. Now comes the question, how is 
it that out of all these cosmogonies one only 
is found that stands the test of great scientific 
principles ? Science declares that the God of 
the universe is a God of order, that there has 
been gradation in the growth of the world, 
that there is unity at the root of variety. 
Moses declares so also in the simple, childlike 
language of those days before science had 
existed."! 

Dillmann : " Numerous attempts have been 
made to bring the physical portion of the 
Bible story into accord with the results of 
natural science. These can only at the ut- 
most be carried out in a general way, not in 
detail. . . . The favorite expedient at present 

" Op cit., p. 16. 

\ F W. Robertson, Notes ou Genesis, London, 1876, Lecture L 



PHYSICAL SCIENCE. 



113 



is to combine the formation-periods postulated 
by geology with the six days of our account, 
in such a way as to change the days into for- 
mation-periods of indefinite duration. This 
theory depends at the outset upon a change 
of the meaning of 'day/ but even thus fails 
to make out any agreement between the geo- 
logical periods and the six creative days ; for 
(aside from the definite number six) the 
ancient animal worlds, according to paleonto- 
logical facts, did not disappear after the 
ancient plant worlds, but together with thetn> 
while according to Gen. i. 10, 12, the forma- 
tion of the earth and the development of 
plants were finished and sealed by the word 
of divine approval before any animals ap- 
peared." * 

All these facts and opinions point to the 
symbolical and poetical method of interpreta- 
tion as the true one. Thus interpreted the 
creative week becomes like the apex of an 
angle which is as small as you please, but 
whose diverging limbs enclose infinite space. 
All the discoveries which science has made 
and will make in the realm of nature, all the 
scientific libraries and museums of the world 

* DillinauD, Genesis, pp. 10, 11. 



U4 THE OUTSKIRTS OF 

are but illustrations and more ample dis- 
closures of the truth set forth in those simple 
words. If we desire to know what they 
dimly set forth we must turn to God's un- 
written word, and master its secrets with that 
intellect by virtue of which man received from 
Him dominion over nature. 

The object and the province of the author 
of the cosmogony were : — 

First. To proclaim the existence of God, 
the " maker " of the world. 

Second. To assert the moral nature of 
man. 

Third. To lead man, therefore, to worship 
God instead of nature. 

Fourth. To establish the Sabbath as a 
means for the development of man's moral 
nature. 

Fifth. Then, subordinately, to illustrate 
the perfection and the order of nature as the 
workmanship of infinite Wisdom. 

In view of the fallen state of man and his 
consequent proneness to worship the creature, 
these sublime truths needed to be held up be- 
fore him, and especially before the Jews, who 
had emerged from centuries of bondage to 
a nation which worshipped the sun and 



PHYSICAL SCIENCE. 



115 



various animals as representatives, if not as 
impersonations of gods ;* and to them above 
all others, because they were the conservators 
of the truth which, in its fuller development, 
was to redeem and renovate the world. 

The practical religious power of this por- 
tion of the Bible, at the present day, is well 
illustrated by an incident mentioned by Rev. 
Thomas Hill in an article on this chapter: 
A Japanese or Chinese young man in New 
York had never heard of God until he read 
of Him in the opening verses of the Bible, 
when at once the truth dawned upon him, and 
all the mystery of his life and of nature found 
a perfect explanation in the one God. He 
began, from that moment, to worship Him.f 
Thus is this Scripture "profitable for in- 
struction in righteousness/' as well as rational 
in its import. 

But if we adopt the usual method of inter- 
pretation we shall involve ourselves in diffi- 
culties from which no amount of scientific 
or theological ingenuity will suffice to extri- 
cate us. 

* See Dent. iv. 19, 20. 

t Bibliotheca Sacra, April, 1875. Ex-President Hill there treats 
Gen. i. as strictly religious in its character and aim, while poetic in 
its style. 



H6 THE OUTSKIRTS OF 

The views of this paper maybe summarized 
in these words : The Bible cosmogony, as con- 
tained in the first thirty-four verses of the 
Book of Genesis, was written with an ethical- 
religious aim by an author whose religious na- 
ture was divinely inspired. Whoever may have 
been the author of its traditional or written 
form, Moses believed and taught its main ideas, 
and the promulgator of the moral law was thus 
in so far also the historian of the institution of 
physical law. The language is phenomenal, 
Oriental, and symbolical. Phenomena are de- 
scribed according to primeval conceptions of 
nature, entirely unaided by a science of nature, 
either inspired or uninspired. Not that there 
might not have been a revealed scientific 
cosmogony, just as we have in some parts of 
Scripture revealed future history, but the 
facts show that such a cosmogony was not 
given to us, and it would be easy to adduce 
reasons for such a revelation having been 
withheld. On the other hand, the account 
contains suggestions of general laws as well 
as remarkable-agreements with nature as to a 
great series of facts, which would seem to 
indicate an insight into the general methods 
of God in nature, or at least are a strong testi- 



PHYSICAL SCIENCE. 



117 



mony to the genius of the author as the sim- 
plicity of his style is to his literary skill. 
And the extraordinary exercise of these 
intellectual gifts may safely be attributed 
indirectly to religious inspiration. Thus 
Milton described in " Paradise Lost " a nebula 
long before such a thing was known, and 
foreshadowed the nebular hypothesis: — * 

"A dark, 
Illimitable ocean, without bound, 

Without dimension; where length, breadth, and highth, 
And time, and place, are lost ; where eldest Night 
And Chaos, ancestors of Nature, hold 
Eternal anarchy, amidst the noise 
Of endless wars, and by confusion stand. 
For hot, cold, moist, and dry, four champions fierce, 
Strive here for mastery, and to battle bring 
Their embryon atoms." 

" Cnaos umpire sits, 
And by decision more embroils the fray, 
By which he reigns : Next him, high arbiter, 
Chance governs all. Into this wild abyss 
The womb of 'Nature ; and perhaps her grave. 
Of neither sea, nor shore, nor air, nor fire, 
But all these in their pregnant causes mix'd 
Confus'dly, and which thus must ever fight, 
Unless the Almighty Maker them ordain 
His dark materials to create more worlds." 

" Some tumultuous cloud 
Instinct with fire and nitre . " (Second Book. ) 

* Simon Xewcomb, Popular Astronomy, 4th edit., JSew York, 1882, 
p. 503. 



Il8 OUTSKIRTS OF PHYSICAL SCIENCE, 

What classic learning and a consecrated 
imagination did for the author of " Paradise 
Lost/' Chaldean or Egyptian learning and 
native genius, guided by a divinely inspired 
moral nature, may have done for the author 
of the cosmogony. 

The element of divine inspiration in the 
first chapter of Genesis must be sought, not 
in any revelations it makes of nature, but 
in the sublimity of its religious truths: " In 
the beginning God created the heavens and 
the earth," "God created man in His own 
image, ,, truths which, like a gold and silver 
thread, run all through the fabric of Revela- 
tion. 

Its wonderful simplicity, born of a time, when 
men looked upon nature with less of analysis 
than of "thoughtful, meditative wonder/' and 
the divine truth which breathes through its 
imagery and symbolism, stamp it with those 
intellectual and religious characteristics which 
distinguish the Scriptures from ordinary writ- 
ings, and command for them our reverence 
and admiration. 



THE 



VITAL QUESTIONS IN THE CONFLICT 



Religious and Physical Science. 



TO CREATIONISTS AND EVOLUTIONISTS. 



" How came she there, that majestic shape, jewelled in ideas 
— jewelled in ideas, were they but shells of the shore, or sim- 
ple heath-bells of the most savage moor ? — That is it, all has 
been duly developed from an atom, but whence are the ideas — 
the ideas of the vast resultant organization ? " 

James Hutchison Stirling, The Secret of Hegel. 

{i For the invisible things of hint since the creation of the 
world are clearly seen, being perceived through the things that 
are made, even his everlasting power and divinity. " — 
Romans i. 20. 

" Till at the last arose the man, 
Who throve and branch'' d from clime to clime, 
The herald of a higher race, 
And of h im self in h igh er place, 
If so he type this work of time, 
Within himself, from more to more" 

In Memoriam, cxviii. 

WHILE to the devout heart and the en- 
lightened mind there is, and can be no 
conflict between Christian faith and physical 
science or between goodness and wisdom, 
whether as elements of the divine character 
revealed to us through Jesus Christ and 
through nature, or as reflections of the same 
in the character and works of men, no one 
can go far without perceiving that our con- 
ceptions of things religious and things physi- 
cal, that is, our religious and our physical 
science, are far from being in harmony. 



I2 2 1IIE OUTSKIRTS OF 

During the last two or three decades so 
much has been said and written on " the con- 
flict between science and religion," as it is 
now popularly termed, that one is not only- 
surfeited with the quantity of matter, but 
somewhat bewildered by the multiplicity of 
issues presented.* It is well, therefore, to 
inquire what fundamental and practical 
questions underlie all this writing, lecturing 
and sermonizing. An endeavor to state these 
candidly and clearly may throw some light 
upon the true method of their solution. 

But as the spirit of men largely determines 
their philosophy, and a certain current of 
thought underlies all thinking, let us first 
consider, what are the directions of these 
opposite currents? 

On the one hand, the representatives of 
Christianity, looking steadfastly at the moral 
and religious side of man, consider him chiefly 
in his relations to a future existence and 
an unseen God; "for the things which are 
seen are temporal, but the things which are 
not seen are eternal." The existence of this 

*Prof. Ch. W. Shields, in his Final Philosophy as issuing from 
theHarmony of Science and Religion, an Historical and Critical Intro- 
duction, 2d edit., New York, 1879, affords the general reader invaluable 
aid in reviewing and systematizing the conflicting views. 



PHYSICAL SCIENCE. 



123 



Being and His claims upon the obedience and 
love of men have, along down the ages, been 
affirmed by numerous miraculous manifesta- 
tions, and even our every-day Christianity 
was ushered into the world by the testimony 
j)f those who had witnessed the miracles and 
the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Christian 
families from childhood up are thus made 
familiar with the miraculous method of divine 
operation, and early learn to look upon even 
the ordinary phenomena of nature somehow 
as the immediate effects of a divine activity. 
It is not surprising, therefore, and in view of 
the one-sidedness of the human mind, that a 
tendency exists to unduly emphasize the 
supernatural, and that the slower and seem- 
ingly less direct mode of divine government 
in nature should not be as fully recognized 
as its universality requires. Indeed, it would 
be easy to trace the pernicious effects of an 
undue supernaturalism among the more igno- 
rant classes of Christians, especially in the 
less enlightened sections of our country, at all 
those points in the individual and social life 
where religious faith has anything to do with 
nature. 

On the other hand, the student of nature 



124 



THE OUTSKIRTS OF 



looks at man chiefly on the physical side, in 
his relations to the physical world, and, in- 
deed, as forming a part of it ; he looks upon 
nature simply as a vast and complex piece of 
mechanism which, as far as his observation 
extends, acts in accordance with a certain 
uniformity which he denominates natural law. 
His pursuits and intellectual habits dispose 
him to look everywhere for law governing 
impersonal forces. 

It is evident that a problem in nature sub- 
mitted to the consideration of two persons 
who had each come mainly under the influence 
. of one of these schools of thought might 
easily receive two entirely different interpre- 
tations. The one would be inclined to call to 
its solution the supposition of creative inter- 
positions ; the other would look no further 
than the operations of natural force under 
natural law. To take an extreme case, one 
would ascribe the origin of species to super- 
natural acts, somewhat like that which pro- 
vided wine at the wedding in Cana ; the other 
would ascribe it to a process of mere natural 
selection; and, proceeding to more general 
questions, the one would make all nature 
supernatural, the other would eliminate the 



PHYSICAL SCIENCE. 



125 



supernatural from the universe.* The effects 
of these tendencies are, in the one case, igno- 
rance of nature, both as the revelation of the 
divine intellect and that with which our earthly 
existence has immediately to do, and also 
little understanding of the intellectual prob- 
lems which some sincere minds, students of 
nature, experience in forming their religious 
conceptions, and, in the other case, ignorance 
of the vast moral problems and possibilities, 
of whose very existence the supernatural is 
to us both the evidence and the only solution. 
Such views, carried to their logical results, 
would lodge the Christian in a narrow scepti- 
cism as to God's relation to nature, and the 
scientist in atheism of thought and life. 

These conflicting tendencies express them- 
selves in the following vital questions : — 

A. Is there a personal Mind behind these 
forces and laws ? 

B. Is there a Providence riding human 
life? 

C. Is prayer effective ? 

D. Is a miracle possible? 



*See on " The Ideas of Nature and the Supernatural as presented 
in the Scriptures," by Tayler Lewis, in the Special Introduction to 
Lange's Commentary on Genesis (Am. edit.), ISTew York, 1869. 



126 THE OUTSKIRTS OF 

But the same conflicting tendencies meet 
in another issue which comes home to every 
one. This question concerns only indirectly 
the existence of God, but has to do with the 
moral existence of man, and has arisen from 
the study of his physical constitution and of 
animal life in general. 

E. Is 711 an anything but the highest type of 
vertebrate life? Is he pJiysieally descended 
from the brutes, and to be classified with them ? 

Thus, on the one side, we have the existence 
of God, and, on the other, the immortality of 
the soul questioned, and find ourselves brought 
to the edge of an awful abyss of thought. All 
that generations have lived and died for, the 
highest, tenderest, and holiest of human hopes, 
would be replaced by the despair of a soulless 
cosmos. 

The grounds for these doubts are so famil- 
iar as hardly to need mention : 

A. It is claimed that all the phenomena 
of nature may be ultimately traced to the 
operation upon matter of a few correlated 
forces (if not to a single force), which always 
act and have acted in obedience to fixed laws ; 
and that it is in nowise necessary, in order to 
account for our universe, to suppose the exist- 



PHYSICAL SCIENCE. 



127 



ence of a Creator ; that these forces, in their 
interactions and evolutions and transmuta- 
tions, are all-sufficient to produce all the com- 
plex phenomena which excite our admiration. 

B. It is claimed that this uniformity in 
nature is opposed to the doctrine of a personal 
Providence in human affairs. 

C. And therefore to the doctrine of prayer, 
as far as prayer has anything to do with 
them. 

D. That in consequence of these negations 
there is no supernatural, and all accounts of 
miracles must be the relics of an age of gross 
ignorance and superstition, or else myths 
which in the course of centuries have ob- 
tained their present form and credence. 

While it is by no means proposed to bring 
the resources of theology and philosophy to 
combat all these propositions, — a work which 
belongs to the theologian, — it may not be 
misjudged to consider some of them in the 
light of modern physical science and of so 
much of theology as appears to be sustained 
by it. 

A. The profound study of Nature in all 
her departments, it is acknowledged, reveals 
a vast svstem of forces and laws which in the 



j 28 THE OUTSKIRTS OF 

last analysis prove to be few and simple.* 
As we follow the history of nature we find 
that it consists of a series of stages, — the 
inorganic, organic, and human ; and not 
only do these manifestly constitute a pro- 
gression, but each in itself is a progression as 
shown by the history of our planet, of vegeta- 
ble and animal life,f and of the human race. 
These statements, especially those relating to 
the inorganic and organic stages, are borne 
out by the following well-known facts : The 
law of gravitation, as formulated by Newton, 
is the perfection of simplicity, but infinitely 
complex and far reaching in its effects. It 
affects the remotest planet as well as the 
paper upon which these lines are printed; the 
same maybe said of the law of chemical at- 
traction which governs the atoms of the fiery 
gases in the sun as well as those of the pebble 
at our feet; or of the law of cell-growth which 
is concerned alike in the structure of the gigan- 
tic Sequoia and in the smallest spot of mould. 
The discovery of the correlation of motion, 

*Wm. R. Grove, The Correlation of Physical Forces, 1st edit. 
London, 1846. John Tyudall, Heat a Mode of Motion. London, 
1863. Herbert Spencer, First Principles. London, 1862. Josiah P. 
Cooke, Modern Chemistry. New York, 1875. 

| Herbert Spencer, Principles of Biology. London, 1864-7. 



PHYSICAL SCIENCE. 



129 



heat, and light has greatly simplified our con- 
ceptions of physical force, and the revelations 
of the spectroscope have given us a new view 
of the universality of chemical and physical 
laws.* The lower plants, like the Bacteria, 
Desmids, and Diatoms, and the lower animals, 
as the Monera, Rhizopoda, and Infusoria, are 
almost homogeneous in composition, and very 
simple in structure, while the higher are hete- 
rogeneous and complex. In the lower orders of 
plants and animals the life of the individual is 
sometimes merged in that of the community, 
as in the Lichenes among plants, the Spongida, 
Hydrozoa, Actinozoa, and Polyzoa among ani- 
mals, whereas in the higher orders, among 
both,individualization becomes more complete. 
In the lower orders one organ often per- 
forms several functions, as in the cuttlefish, 
where the siphuncle acts both as an organ of 
locomotion and of aeration for the gills, as in 
Limulus, the horseshoe crab, where, the legs 
subserve both locomotion and mastication ; 
in the Rhizopoda, where respiration, diges- 
tion, and locomotion are performed by* the 
surface of the body, or as in the Confervas 



*H E. Roscoe, Lectures 011 Spectrum Analysis. London, New 
York, 1869. 



!30 TIJE OUTSKIRTS OF 

among plants, where identical parts are organs 
of fructification and vegetation ; but in the 
higher organisms we have that more perfect 
division of labor, of which our own bodies are 
the best illustration. During the earlier geo- 
logical ages the flora and fauna, although 
large, were neither of the highest order nor, as 
a whole, of the greatest diversity, their great- 
est perfection and variety having only been 
attained in later times. Thus Cryptogams and 
Gymnosperms were the highest plants of the 
Paleozoic, while the Angiosperms appeared 
only during the later Mesozoic and the Ceno- 
zoic ; and among animals we have, during the 
Paleozoic, Protozoa, Articulata, Mollusca, 
Radiata, Pisces, and Reptilia ; but not until 
Mesozoic times did Aves and Mammalia 
appear, while Man began to be only in late 
Tertiary or Post-Tertiary times.* The min- 
eral, the plant, the animal, and the man, or, 
taking their constitutive and representative 
units, the crystal, the cell, and the soul, typify 
the history as well as the constitution of 
nature. The genius of Nature may then be 
said in general to attain vast results by sim- 
ple means, — : to proceed, both in time and 

* See Scientific Cosmogony, in essay on Genesis, p. 104. 



PHYSICAL SCIENCE. 



131 



space, from the simple to the complex, from 
the uniform to the multiform, from the homo- 
geneous to the heterogeneous, from the gen- 
eral to the special, from matter to life, from 
life to spirit. Its course is a progression of 
force, of law, and of form, ending in a being 
possessing intellect, feeling, and will 

Such a system must needs commend itself 
to every philosophical mind. Similar charac- 
teristics or ideas on a dimunitive scale in the 
work of an artist, architect, poet, or philoso- 
pher would be regarded as evidences of the 
genius of the workman ; but as in nature the 
Workman conceals both his personality and 
his instruments, we refuse to accept evidence 
which on the lower plane of art we consider 
conclusive. 

In this connection some interesting analo- 
gies between architecture and nature deserve 
notice. James Ferguson, in his " History of 
Architecture,"* remarks: " So far as we can 
judge, the human body is the most perfect 
of Nature's works. In it the groundwork or 
skeleton is never seen, and though it can hardly 
be said to be anywhere concealed, it is only 
displayed at the joints or more prominent 

* London, 1865. Vol. I.,pp 34,35. 



132 



THE OUTSKIRTS OF 



points of support, where the action of the 
frame would be otherwise unintelligible. The 
muscles are disposed not only where they are 
most useful, but so as to form groups grace- 
fully rounded in outline. The softness and 
elegance of these are further aided by the 
deposition of adipose matter, and the whole is 
covered with a skin which with its beautiful 
texture conceals the more utilitarian construc- 
tion of the internal parts. In the trunk of the 
body the viscera are disposed wholly without 
symmetry or reference to beauty of any sort, 
the heart on one side, the liver on the other, 
and the other parts exactly in those positions 
and in those forms by which they may most 
directly and easily perform the essential func- 
tions for which they are designed. But the 
whole is concealed in a perfectly symmetrical 
sheath of the most exquisitely beautiful out- 
line. It may be safely asserted that a building 
is beautiful and perfect exactly in the ratio in 
which the same amount of concealment and 
the same amount of display of construction is 
preserved, where the same symmetry is shown 
as between the right legs and arms, where 
the parts are applied to different purposes, 
and where the same amount of ornament is 



PHYSICAL SCIEXCE. 



133 



added, to adorn without interfering with what 
is useful. In short, there is no principle in- 
volved in the structure of man, which may not 
be taken as the most absolute standard of 
excellence in architecture. ... So instinc- 
tively, but so literally, has this correct pro- 
cess of imitating Nature been followed in all 
true styles of architecture, that we can always 
reason regarding them as we do with reference 
to natural objects. . . . A Cuvier or an Owen 
can restore the form and predicate the habits 
of an extinct animal from a few fragments of 
bone, or even from a print of a foot. In the 
same manner an architect may, from a few 
fragments of a building, if of a true style of 
architecture, restore the whole of its pris- 
tine forms, and with almost the same amount 
of certainty. This arises wholly because the 
architects of those days had correct ideas of 
what was meant by imitation of Nature. 
They added nothing to their buildings which 
was not essential ; there was no detail which 
had not its use, and no ornament which was 
not an elaboration or heightening of some 
essential part, and hence it is that a true 
building is as like to a work of Nature as 
any production of man's hands can be to 
the creation of his Maker." 



134 



THE OUTSKIRTS OF 



McCosh and Dickie, in their work on 
" Typical Forms and Special Ends in Crea- 
tion/'* remark on the converse of this truth 
that of the architectural principles of Conve- 
nience, Symmetry, Euarythma, and Ornament 
"not one is wanting in the architecture of 
Nature." 

Although it has been claimed, and perhaps 
with some reason, that the argument from 
design involves an assumption, it will cer- 
tainly be granted that there are remarkable 
contrivances and appliances in nature, and 
that these are strongly indicative of a simi- 
larity between the designing power in nature 
and that in mechanical art. The fundamental 
laws of architecture are, mechanical, artistic, 
and decorative design. The first regards the 
utility of the structure, the second its general 
aesthetic qualities, and the third its acces- 
sory decoration. Buckland, in the sixth 
volume of the Bridgewater Treatise, long ago 
showed how perfectly the law of mechanical 
design was exemplified in the shell of the 
Nautilus and the Ammonite ; but much re- 
mains to be said on the exemplification of the 
laws of artistic and decorative design in the 

* First Am. edit., New York, 1856. 



PHYSICAL SCIENCE. 



135 



shells of the Ammonitidae. The laws of 
artistic design are, Unity, Contrast, Eua- 
rithmy, Proportion, Symmetry, and Har- 
mony.* 

The law of Unity requires that the struc- 
ture have " one end, one design, one compre- 
hensive use, but also that each part should 
have all its parts so disposed that they may 
be regarded as one." 

The law of Contrast requires diversity, 
variety, richness, resting, however, on unity. 

The law of Euarithmy requires a limit to 
the multiplicity of parts. 

The law of Proportion requires proportion 
between the parts and the whole, based either 
upon a mathematical principle or upon the 
nature of the material and the object of the 
structure. 

The law of Symmetry requires symmetry 
between the different like members. 

The law of Harmony requires that the ra- 
tional ground for adopting any one dimension 
should govern in the adoption of every other 
dimension, except so far as the special case 
calls for different treatment. 

* These classifications anl definitions are taken from the short 
manual of Henry X.Day, Science of ^Esthetics. Xew Haven, 1S72. 



I36 THE OUTSKIRTS OF 

Now applying these principles in the study 
of the shells of the Ammonites, we find that 
they are all exemplified : Unity in the preva- 
lence of the same design throughout each 
shell ; Contrast in the diversity and richness 
of the lines formed by the several whorls, 
ribs, collars, or keel; Euarithmy in the general 
simplicity of the designs; mathematical Pro- 
portion between the diameter of the whorl at 
any given point and its distance from the 
centre ;* Symmetry, both bilateral and con- 
centric ; Harmony in the dimensions of the 
ribs and nodes which only vary as the size of 
the whorls. 

Decorative design is also exemplified in the 
very great variety of designs of the ribs, which 
in different species or groups are circular, ser- 
pentine, broken, or forked, of the nodes, which 
vary in height, shape, and position, and also 
of the minute striae and corrugations of the 
surface.f 

It may be objected that the architectural 

* This has been formulated in the case of the Nautilus. See H. G-. 
Broun, Die Klassen und Ordnungen des Thier-Reich's, Cephalopoda 
1869. 

f A perusal of Alcide D'Orbigny's Pal£ontologie Francaise (Ce- 
phalopodes), Paris, 1860, or of some of the numerous German mono 
graphs on Ammonites, or an examination of a paleontological collec 
tion, will serve to verify these statements. 



PHYSICAL SCIENCE. 



137 



principles traced in the shells of the Ammon- 
ites are but the natural results of the interac- 
tion of the force of gravitation and the efforts 
of the muscular tissues of the mollusk, together 
with the alternating periods of growth and 
rest to which these animals are probably 
habituated, all affecting the direction, amount, 
and form of the calcareous secretions of the 
mantle.* But even if it be conceded that 
the mollusk works instinctively after no pat- 
tern, and that the action of two or three 
forces, operating according to well-known 
laws, alone suffice to produce a structure 
responding to the highest demands of archi- 
tectural art, we shall still find ourselves com- 
pelled to admire the result, and shall recog- 
nize yet more the mind quality of that which 
by means so simple could produce effects so 
complex and beautiful. Organisms with geo- 
metrical forms necessarily afford simpler illus- 
trations of architectural principles than those 
with curvilinear outline ; but for the latter the 
same truth holds, as Ferguson has shown for 



* See Alpheus Hyatt, Transformation of Planorbis at St inheim, 
with Remarks on the Effects of Gravity upon the Forms of Shells and 
Animals, Proc. Am. Ass. Adv. Science, Vol. XXIX. p. 527. Salem, 
1881. 



138 



THE OUTSKIRTS OF 



the human body, and as could easily be shown 
for nearly all plants and animals. 

When man thus imitates the very spirit of 
Nature we regard it as an evidence of a high 
degree of personal intelligence ; but when, 
and by dint of much study, we discover the 
methods which prevail in nature, we regard 
them simply as self-originated properties of 
matter, or results of "natural selection," or 
at best as the operations of " an Unknown 
Reality, symbolized by matter, motion, and 
force." No one doubts that the fallen column 
or the broken frieze once expressed the 
thought of an architect, nor do we hesitate to 
find in the evolution of the various styles of 
architecture evidences of mind; but the fossil 
Saurian and Cephalopod, with their wonderful 
mechanisms and ornamentations, are mind- 
less products, and the evolution of the great 
types of life was without an Evolver ! As 
well might w r e claim mechanical knowledge 
for the mason's trowel, and genius for the 
sculptor's chisel, as to ascribe Nature solely to 
the forces at work in her. Thus the Sciences 
of Nature having exhibited the ideas which 
underlie and pervade nature, and failing to 
perceive the logic of their own discoveries, 



PHYSICAL SCIENCE. jjq 

would trace those ideas back to a mindless, 
if not to a material source. 

There are two significant passages in But- 
ler's " Analogy, " bearing directly on this 
subject: — 

u The only distinct meaning of the word 
natural is stated, fixed, or settled; since what 
is natural as much requires and presupposes 
an intelligent agent to render it so, i. e., to 
effect it continually or at stated times, as what 
is supernatural or miraculous does to effect it 
for once."* 

" Men are impatient, and for precipitating 
things : but the Author of nature appears 
deliberate throughout his operations ; accom- 
plishing his natural ends by slow successive 
steps. And there is a plan of things before- 
hand laid out, which, from the nature of it, 
requires various systems of means as well as 
length of time in order to the carrying on of 
its several parts into execution. Thus in 
the daily course of natural providence, God 
operates in the very same manner, as in the 
dispensation of Christianity ; making one 
thing subservient to another ; this to some- 

* This was quoted by Darwin on the first leaf of his Origin of 
Species. 



140 



THE OUTSKIRTS OF 



thing further ; and so on, through a progress- 
ive series of means, which extend, both back- 
ward and forward beyond our utmost view. 
Of this manner of operation, everything we 
see in the course of nature is as much an 
instance as any part of the Christian dispen- 
sation." 

Chalmers, in the introduction to the first 
volume of the Bridgewater Treatise, observes 
also : " Now it is a commonly received, and 
has indeed been raised into a sort of univer- 
sal maxim, that the highest property of wis- 
dom is to achieve the most desirable end, or 
the greatest amount of good, by the fewest 
possible means, or by the simplest machinery. 
When this test is applied to the laws of 
nature, then we esteem it, as enhancing the 
manifestation of intelligence, that one single 
law, as gravitation, should, as from a cen- 
tral and commanding eminence, subordinate 
to itself a whole host of most important 
phenomena, or that from one great and par- 
ent property, so vast a family of beautiful 
consequences should spring." 

This is also Berkeley's idea in his "Alci- 
phron," where, after showing that from mo- 
tion we infer a mover or cause, and so from 



PHYSICAL SCIENCE. 



I 4 I 



reasonable motions a rational cause ; and 
then, contrasting the insignificance of human 
actions and works with the greatness of the 
universe, he deduces the incomparable great- 
ness of its rational Cause, and proceeds thus: — 
u Is there not in natural productions and 
effects a visible unity of counsel and design ? 
Are not the rules fixed and immovable? Do 
not the same laws of motion obtain through- 
out ? The same in China and here, the same 
2,000 years ago, and at this day ? ... Is there 
not also a connection or relation between 
animals and vegetables, between both and 
the elements, between the elements and 
heavenly bodies ; so that, from their mutual 
respects, influences, subordinations, and uses, 
they may be collected to be parts of one 
whole, conspiring to one and the same end, 
and fulfilling the same design? . . . Will it not 
then follow that this vastly great, or infinite 
power or wisdom must be supposed in one 
and the same Agent, Spirit, or Mind ; and that 
we have at least as clear, full, and immediate 
certainty of the being of this infinitely wise 
and powerful Spirit, as of any one human soul 
whatsoever besides our own ? " * 

* George Berkeley, Alciphron, 17E2, edit, by A. C. Frazer, Ox- 
ford, 1871, Vol. II. Dial, iv. pp. 143-145. 



142 



THE OUTSKIRTS OF 



But since the days of Chalmers, Butler, 
and Berkeley, how greatly have the evidences 
of the unity and rationality of nature multi- 
plied ! These are, indeed, the very features in 
the modern doctrine of " Evolution " which 
give it its intellectual fascination, but which 
some erroneously regard as shutting God out 
of nature, while in reality they are the best 
evidence of " His power and divinity." Thus 
the u Unknown Reality " of Mr. Spencer declares 
the rationality cf His bci:.g through the evolu- 
tion of the " matter y motion , and force which 
symbolize" Him. This argument, like all 
arguments from analogy, may fail to compel 
assent. It is possible for a man to silence 
the logic of his natural intuitions, and to 
insist upon more or different evidence than 
the nature of the case admits of; and in the 
end many a one chooses for himself some 
hypothesis as the basis of his thinking and 
living, and prefers to determine for him- 
self by the result of his own life-experiment 
whether his philosophy shall be found true to 
the constitution of the universe or a mere 
reflection of his own desires. 

B. In reply to the claim that the uniform- 
ity of natural law is opposed to the doctrine 



PHYSICAL SCIENCE. ^3 

of a personal Providence in human affairs, it 
may be observed : — 

i. That the uniformity of natural law is 
perhaps not as fully recognized by theologians 
as it ought to be. Certain it is that many 
Christians look for providential deliverances 
in cases where a little more knowledge of na- 
ture would have convinced them that only 
one issue was possible, and that one in ac- 
cordance with well-known laws of nature. 

2. That this indisposition to recognize 
the law element in nature exists also with 
reference to religious truth. A less dogmatic 
but more scientific study of the Scriptures, of 
the human spirit, and of God's dealings with 
His children, shows that righteousness and 
love are underlaid by great principles or laws 
having their roots in the divine character, 
and as fixed in their nature as are moral and 
physical laws. Indeed, it is the element of 
perfect uniformity or law which lifts these 
virtues into divine attributes ; and in like 
manner, Christian character itself becomes 
established and powerful only in so far as 
it approximates to the same uniformity. 
Thus the realm of law, as the student of 
nature understands it, instead of being con- 



144 



THE OUTSKIRTS OF 



fined to the sphere of the natural, really 
extends to and pervades the sphere of the 
spiritual. The kingdom of Christ has its 
laws just as the kingdoms of mind, life, or 
matter. These laws of the Spirit may be as 
mysterious as the laws of the winds used to 
be, but they are none the less real or potent. 

3. The correlation of moral and physical 
law is seen in the moral and physical disor- 
ders which follow reciprocally the transgres- 
sion of certain moral or physical laws ; and 
that correlation not only largely corroborates 
the religious teachings of Moses and Christ, 
and thus Christ's teachings in regard to 
divine Providence, but it also effects a just 
providence in human affairs. 

4. Not only is there law in the sphere 
of religious truth, and correlation between 
moral and physical law, but natural and re- 
vealed truth are related throughout by anal- 
ogy. This is Butler's idea (really an ancient 
Scripture idea), but it admits of a wider and 
modern application. 

Horace Bushnell, in his " Dissertation on 
Language,"* has a suggestive remark on 
this subject: " What is Christian truth? 

* See volume entitled God in Christ. 



PHYSICAL SCIENCE. 



145 



Pre-eminently, and principally, it is the ex- 
pression of God, — coming into expression 
through histories and rites, through an incar- 
nation, and through language, — in one sylla- 
ble, by the Word. The endeavor is, by means 
of expression and under the laws of expres- 
sion, to set forth God, — His providence and 
His government, and, what is more and higher 
than all, God's own feeling, His truth, love, 
justice, compassion. It accords, also, with 
this, that, while natural science is advancing 
with so great rapidity and certainty of move- 
ment, the advances of mental science are so 
irregular and obscure, and are wrought out 
by a process so conflicting and tortuous. 
There is, however, one hope for mental and 
religious truth, and their final settlement, 
which I confess I see but dimly, and can but 
faintly express or indicate. It is, that Physi- 
cal Science, leading the way, setting out- 
ward things in their true proportions, open- 
ing up their true contents, revealing their 
generic and final causes and laws, and weav- 
ing all into the unity of a real universe, will 
so perfect our knowledge and conception of 
them that we can use them in the second 
department of language with more exactness; 



146 



THE OUTSKIRTS OF 



. . . for, undoubtedly, the whole universe of 
nature is a perfect analogon of the whole 
universe of thought or spirit. Therefore, as 
nature becomes truly a universe only through 
Science revealing its universal laws, the true 
universe of thought and spirit cannot sooner 
be conceived. It would be easy to show, in 
this connection, the immense force already 
exerted over the empire of spiritual truth by 
astronomy, chemistry, geology, the revela- 
tions of light and electricity, and especially of 
the mysterious and plastic workings of life in 
the animal and vegetable kingdoms/'* 

The Great Teacher himself constantly 
makes use of nature as a language to convey 
spiritual truth ; and it is the perfect natural- 
ness of His analogies which distinguishes 
them from the artificial " illustrations " of 
many a sermon ; for instance, His analogy 
between the organic physical connection of 
the vine and its branches and fruit, and the 
organic spiritual union of Himself and every 
child of God. In the same spirit Paul com- 

* See D. A. Wasson, in North American Review, October, 1868, 
Epic Philosophy, which treats of the world of things as signs and 
symbols of moral, metaphysical, or spiritual insight. Some of 
Swedenborg's writings lie in a similar dir ction, but, although con- 
taining truth, can hardly be termed always sensible. 



PHYSICAL SCIENCE. 



1 47 



pares the resurrection of the body to the 
germination of the seed of a cereal. Many 
have been the applications made in recent 
years of the Theory of Evolution to religious 
truth. Thus the Bishop of Carlisle has a 
lecture on the " Gradual Development of Rev- 
elation " ; * and the same method has been 
successfully applied in other departments of 
religious truth, f But all these analogies lie 
deeper than mere rhetoric or a chance re- 
semblance between the facts of nature and 
religion; they indicate similarity and oneness 
in the constitution of the moral and natural 
world. And, the truth of this being once 
grasped, what a key to wisdom it becomes in 
the hands of both the naturalist and the 
religious teacher ! 

5. This analogy and unity throw light on 



* Modern Scepticism; a course of lectures delivered at the request 
of the Christian Evidence Society. 3d edit. London, 1871. 

f See Dr. W. Woods Smyth, The Bible and Evolution, 1873; 
also an abridgment, entitled The Government of God, London, 18S2; 
Henry Drummond, F. G. S., Natural Law in the Spiritual World, 
London, 1883. Neither of these works was known to ihe writer 
when these essays were written, although the thought of one or two 
passages in this paper will he found to he almost identical with that 
of Air. Drummond's work. His idea is not that of analogy between 
either the phenomena or the laws of the natural and the spiritual world, 
but identity of la w through both realms; and this he illustrates in 
several papers which are as fascinating in their freshness as they are 
practical in their character and aim. 



I48 THE OUTSKIRTS OF 

the question of a divine Providence. Thus 
in nature we find tlie pruiciple of suboi'dina- 
tion. The substance of the plant is com- 
posed of elements which form compounds, 
cohere, move or crystallize according to ordi- 
nary chemical and physical laws. If left to 
themselves, these substances would form part 
of the atmosphere, the water, the rocks, and 
the soil; but they are brought under subjection 
to biological law,* and thus combine in the 
structure of a plant of a certain dimension 
and form. The crystal in the cell of the 
plant crystallizes according to mineralogical 
law, but its presence in a vegetable cell is due 
to biological law. Biological law marked 
out the channel in which mineralogical law 
should be executed. The chemical com- 
position of the substance of the plant is 
strictly a chemical cne; the movement of the 
sap through the cell-walls is strictly a physi- 
cal process ; but the structure to which these 
contribute, the organism with its morphologi- 
cal characteristics, and its power of reproduc- 
tion is not the product of mere chemical and 

* This term is used here to distinguish that particular law which 
governs whatever force is concerned in the formation and multiplica- 
tion of cells and their combination in a structure provided with differ- 
ent members performing various functions. 



PHYSICAL SCIENCE. I4 g 

physical processes. The analogous thing 
occurs in animal life, in the intellectual life, 
and the moral life. The laws of animal life, 
subordinating chemical and physical laws, 
and even utilizing the products of vegetable 
life, build up the human organism ; but this 
organism obeys the intellect. as in writing, or 
in painting, music, speech, etc. The mind, 
again, while obedient to the laws of reason, 
serves the moral nature according as thought 
is used to promote good or bad ends. There 
is thus all through nature the element of 
subordination to increasingly higher laws.* 
Now in turning to the life of men, we can 
easily see how it is possible for each one to 
act on his plane and in the integrity of his 
own volitions, and yet for the channel of his 
actions to be marked out for him by a supe- 
rior power, a divine Mind. This is in strict 
conformity to nature. Thus it is possible 
for God to order not only the events of each 
man's life, but of society as a whole. Thus 
He rules in the history of men and of 
nations. 

C. If God is thus the supreme Ruler of 

* Mark Hopkins bases his moral philosophy upon the law of subor- 
dination in the universe. Lectures on Moral Science. Boston, 1862. 



ISO 



THE OUTSKIRTS OF 



events, we may infer that He rules in con 
formity with the laws of His righteous and 
benevolent character. Therefore, we may 
further infer that prayer, when offered to 
Him in conformity with the laws of His 
character, the laws of mind, and of nature, 
may have a reasonable expectation of being 
in due time answered. This is a rational 
and scientific foundation for prayer.* 

D. We have considered some of the rea- 
sons for a belief in the existence of God, in 
His providence, and in prayer. He thus 
would appear as both the Evolver and Ruler, 
the beginning and end of the universe. If 
He is that, He could put forth the same crea- 
tive energy which He must have put forth 
when these forces were set in motion and these 
laws instituted. We have but to suppose 
some end sufficiently high and good and 
rational to believe that He would. The in- 
stitution of the Spiritual kingdom of Jesus 
Christ as a means of lifting men up out of 
spiritual and moral degradation into a new 
life, and the revelation to them of the reality 



*See also James McCosh, The Method of Divine Government, 
Physical, and Moral, Chap. II., On the Providence of Grod. New- 
York, 1851. 



PHYSICAL SCIEXCE. 



151 



of a higher stage of existence hereafter, an- 
swer such conditions. But these questions 
are in the province of theology proper. 

We now come to the second great question, 
— that which involves the moral and spiritual 
nature of man, the other factor of religious 
truth. 

E. As long as it was generally conceded 
that man, physically as well as morally, was 
created by supernatural means, it was inferred 
that his destiny was immortal; for, although it 
was supposed that plants and animals origi- 
nated in the same way, it was assumed that 
the arbitrary Pow'er which brought him and 
them into existence gave him a nature and a 
destiny distinct from the rest of "creation." 
But now that naturalists have endeavored to 
demonstrate man's physical descent from 
some highly developed, extinct, animal spe- 
cies, the question has arisen whether there 
is any essential difference between man, 
physically or morally, and a mere animal. 
If the difference is simply one of degree, 
then physical death would appear to end 
human existence, and therefore terminate its 
moral value. 

But what are or were the grounds for 



152 



THE OUTSKIRTS OF 



believing that the progenitors of the human 
race were made by direct, supernatural means ? 
The mind at once reverts to the Old Testa- 
ment, to the testimony of the moral and 
intellectual consciousness, and to the numer- 
ous objective indications of man's superiority 
to the animal kingdom. 

On the other hand, what are the grounds 
for the theory of physical descent? 

i. It is argued, in reply to the Old Testa- 
ment doctrine, or that which has been popu- 
larly current as such, that the idea of miracu- 
lous creation is not conveyed by the pas- 
sages in question ; that natural as well as 
miraculous processes may be described by 
the language used. Thus we have the long 
and slow, successive eras of geological history 
described in the same Scriptures under the 
figure of a few solar days. Why may not, 
therefore, the complex processes of nature by 
which physical man was evolved and made 
ready for his spiritual endowment be portrayed 
to us by the words which have been rendered 
"made," "formed," and which would seem to 
apply literally only to the work of an artisan. 
The figure in the one case harmonizes perfectly 
with that in the other. The possible correct- 



PHYSICAL SCIENCE. 



153 



ness of this view, and, indeed, of the symboli- 
cal character of much of the Biblical story 
of the infancy of the race, has long been 
admitted by some devout Biblical students. 
Thus Tayler Lewis remarks : — 

„ In this part, then, of our argument, all that 
we need contend for is that the origin of 
man, as man, was special and peculiar. By 
this we mean, his distinctive humanity, as 
separate from all he has in common with the 
lower natures. We are not much concerned 
about the mode of production of his material 
or merely physical organization. In regard to 
this, there is nothing in the expressions* He 
made/ or s He created him/ or ' He made him 
from the earth/ which is at war with the 
idea of growth, or development, during 
either a longer or shorter period. Ages 
might have been employed in bringing that 
material nature, through all the lower stages, 
up to the necessary degree of perfection 
for the higher use that was afterwards to 
be made of it. We do not say that the Bible 
teaches this ; we do not think that any one 
would be warranted in putting any such 
interpretation upon it. There is, however, 
in itself, and aside from any question of 



154 



THE OUTSKIRTS OF 



interpretation, nothing monstrous or incredi- 
ble in the idea that what had formerly been 
the residence of an irrational and groveling 
tenant might now be selected as the abode 
of a higher life, might be fitted up in a man- 
ner corresponding to its new dignity, might 
be made to assume an erect, heavenward 
position, whilst it takes on that beauty of 
face and form which would become the new 
intelligence, and, indeed, be one of its neces- 
sary results. The glorified body of Christ, 
which is now in the highest heaven, is linked 
in its origin with our frail, physical, material 
humanity. He took our nature into himself. 
The moral and theological bearings of the 
two cases may be widely different, and yet 
the physical connection involved in the latter 
is not less wonderful, to say the least, than 
any that might be imagined to exist in the 
former case. A former physical growth 
might thus have been taken up into a new 
life. From an old organism there might 
thus have been made a new man. On this 
head, however, the Bible gives us no distinct 
information. . . . And yet, be this growth 
or physical origin whatever it may, — be its 
mode ever so much controlled by the laws of 



PHYSICAL SCIENCE. jjj 

an antecedent nature, be its duration longer 
or shorter, — it does not at all necessitate the 
conclusion which some pious minds would so 
much dread. It does not make man himself 
a growth, a development. Humanity proper, 
or the human proprium, did not grow, was no 
work of Nature, but had a divine, a supernat- 
ural, an instantaneous beginning. There 
was a time, a moment, when man — a man — 
the primus homo, began to be, who a moment 
before was not. There was one in whom 
humanity commenced, and from whom all 
subsequent humanity has been derived. 
There was one who first began to be a man, 
and this principium has its date from the 
first energizing of that higher life which came 
from a direct inbreathing of the Almighty 
and Everlasting Father of Spirits."* 

Hermann Ulrici, in his great psychological 
work, "God and Man," f chiefly directed 
against modern materialism and atheism, 
while demonstrating in many ways that there 
is a radical distinction between the human 
body and soul, still admits the possibility and 

* Tayler Lewis, The SSix Days of Creation, or the Scriptural Cos- 
mology, 2d edit., ScheMectady, 1855, pp 248-250. 

t Dr. Hermann Ulrici, G-ott und der ALensch, Part I., Leib und 
Seele, 2d edit., Leipzig, 1874, p. 118. 



i 5 6 



THE OUTSKIRTS OF 



the rationality of the theory of man's physical 
descent. He remarks : " In other respects 
we do not at all oppose the theory of descent 
in general, but only the Darwin-Haeckelian, 
purely mechanical conception of it, which 
shuts out all governing plan and design ; and 
we believe in the prevalence of a universal 
principle of structure and development, both 
in the inorganic and organic realms, which, 
immanent both in mineral substances and in 
organic structures, has governed from the 
beginning in harmonious, systematic, and de- 
signful form, and in accordance with which 
the manifold rock species as well as the 
various organisms have arisen respectively 
from* and after each other in a progressive 
order, from the lower to the higher, forming 
and developing themselves " 

2. According to the theory of the econ- 
omy of divine energy, it may be assumed that, 
if physical man could by any process of 
nature have been evolved, there would have 
been no occasion for, and therefore no prob- 
ability of, the exercise of any miraculous 
power. 

* TJlrici ought to have omitted the word " from " in his definition. 
It implies more than the facts seem to warrant. 



PHYSICAL SCIENCE. 157 

3. Admitting all that the human con- 
sciousness, all that the Scriptures, all that 
mental and moral philosophers have claimed 
for the spirit of man, as to its independent 
existence, its present and future moral 
capability, its immortality, all this may yet be 
consistent with the natural origin of physical 
man. 

Thus much negatively. Now, positively, the 
grounds for accepting the theory of the physi- 
cal descent of man are, briefly stated ; and 
this will furnish occasion for presenting some 
of the later and maturer views of specialists 
on evolution in the animal kingdom. 

4. It has been demonstrated by eminent 
naturalists that species of plants and animals 
do vary to a certain extent under the influence 
of artificial and natural environment and the 
instinct of self-preservation, so that the term 
u species" is no longer to be considered as 
denoting a fixed, but a variable, quality.* 

5. It has likewise been demonstrated that 
not only does the nature of the environment 
determine to a certain extent the character 

* Charles Darwin, The Variation of Animals and Plants under 
Domestication, London, 1863 ; On the Origin of Species hy Means of 
Natural Selection, London, 1859. Alfred R. W T allace, Contributions 
to the Theory of Natural Selection, London, 1870. 



158 



THE OUTSKIRTS OF 



of the species, but that the sexual instincts 
play a part in determining its modifications.* 

The laws of heredity, by which species 
tend to reproduce themselves, and of variation, 
by which they tend to vary, are therefore 
opposite factors in the development of ani- 
mal life. 

6. It is a well-established zoological and 
anatomical fact, that, while, on the one hand, 
man's physical constitution is correlated to 
his supreme position in the animal kingdom, 
and in a measure to his intellectual dignity, 
and that, therefore, great differences exist be- 
tween him physically and the highest animal of 
which we have any knowledge, still, on the 
other hand, there is far less difference between 
him physically and the highest animal than 
there is between the ape and the invertebrate 
type. Man's distinguishing characteristics are 
primarily ) in degree, intellectual, but abso- 
utely, in kind, only moral and spiritual.! It is 
also evident from the unity of animal life that 
any law of physical development which applies 
to the invertebrates may also be assumed to 

* Charles Darwin, The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation 
to Sex. London, 1871. 
| SeeUlrici, op. cit. 



PHYSICAL SCIENCE. j-g 

apply substantially to the vertebrates, and, if 
so, to the physical constitution of man. 

7. The occurrence of so-called prophetic 
or collective types of animal life supports the 
theory of the physical connection of diverse 
types. These animals combine certain char- 
acteristics of a lower with some of a higher 
type, as the Dinosaurs and the Odontor- 
nithes,* which combined reptilian and avi- 
arian features. (See foot-note *, page 160.) 

8. Retrograde development, or reversion-: 
when ancestral features reappear in remote 
descendants. If these features can be re- 
ferred to a lower order, they indicate decline 
of the race, and possible genetic relation with 
a lower order. f 

9. Rudimentary organs : organs once 
used but, in consequence of long disuse, are 
transmitted in a mere rudimentary con- 
diton.J 

10. Embryonic development: the embryo in 
the course of its development passes through 

* Othniel C. Marsh, Odontornithes ; a Monograph of the Ex- 
tinct Toothed Birds of North America, United States Geological 
Exploration of the 40th Parallel. Washington, 1880. 

f Darwin, Descent of Man. Some monstrosities are probably 
cases of reversion. 

X Ernst Hackel, Generelle Morphologie der Organismen. Ber- 
lin, 1S66. 



!6o THE OUTSKIRTS OF 

different stages, resembling the inferior orders 
of the class to which the animal belongs, and 
repeating also in itself the order of succession 
of the extinct representatives of the class in 
past geological times. Thus the history of the 
individual not only indicates the zoological 
relations of the order, but also epitomizes 
the paleontological history of the class.* 

ii. The paleontological history of the 
horse tribe in America as well as in Europe 
is a striking indication of the probability of 
the physical connection of the genera of that 
tribe, although there are doubts as to the 
equine character of at least one member of 
the series. f 

12. The order of the appearance of the 
different classes of animals in geological 
history forms in general a progressive series, 
terminating in man J 

13. The natural and philosophical charac- 
ter of the theory of the organic connection 
of animal life is, as has already been shown, 
a strong argument in its favor. 

* Louis Agassiz, An Essay on Classification, in Contributions to 
the Natural History of the Unit, d States. Vol. I. Boston, 1857. 

t O. C. Marsh, American Naturalist, Vol. VIII. p. 288; also J. D. 
Dana, Manual of Geology, 3d ed:t.,lS79. pi. x. 

\ J. D.Dana, Ibid., General Observations on Geological History, 
Progress of Life, p. 592. 



PHYSICAL SCIENCE. x Qi 

All these facts and probabilities point 
more or less directly to some theory of 
evolution as the true explanation of the 
origin of the various forms of animal life, 
and therefore to the natural origin of man's 
physical nature. 

These indications are, however, modified, 
limited, and' supplemented by the following 
considerations : — 

I. That the organizing principle which 
manifests itself in vegetable and animal 
structures is either a different force from 
any known chemical or physical force, or else 
a superior combination of those forces. That 
the lowest organisms arise by spontaneous 
generation from lifeless matter has been 
disproved by the most careful experiments.* 
Furthermore, the unit (the cell) of the vege- 
table kingdom is a totally different element 
from the unit (the crystal) of the mineral 
kingdom. 

This is well set forth by Prof. J. D. Dana :f 

* John Tyndall, Further Researches on the Deportment and Vital 
Resistance of Putrefactive and Infective Organisms, from a Physical 
Point of View. Proceedings, Royal Society, abstract in "Nature," 
June 14, 1S77; also his article in the "Xineteenth Century," on Spon- 
taneous Generation, 1S77-S. 

f J. D. Dana, Structure and Classification of Zoophytes, Intro- 
duction to the volume on Zoophytes of the Reports of the Wilkes 
Exploring Expedition, 1816, p. 96, foot-note. 



l6 2 THE OUTSKIRTS OF 

11 The existence of vital force as a cause has 
been of late doubted, and its supposed effects 
attributed to mere chemical forces. . . . The 
single fact, often urged, that inorganic mat- 
ter takes on angular forms, and organic 
rounded, seems to decide the question. The 
perfect individual, in the former, has plane 
faces of fixed angular dimensions, and pro- 
ceeds from attractions in straight lines, having 
fixed mathematical relations. Solidification 
is, in fact, only the union of particles by these 
axes, which are assumed generally at the 
time the change of condition commences. 
Crystallization and solidification are, there- 
fore, one and the same process; for the parti- 
cles of a solid are always possessed of this 
crystalline attraction, although they may 
constitute together an amorphous mass. 
Even those so-called organic substances, 
which the chemist claims to have made, still 
show the same powers of crystallization on be- 
coming solid. . . . But in the tissues of plants 
and animals, there are no planes or solid 
angles, except such as may result from pres- 
sure. Where, indeed, is there the slightest 
analogy to a crystal in an oblong cellule filled 
with fluids ? And in the budding of cellules 



PHYSICAL SCIENCE. 



163 



from one another, and the formation of lin- 
ear series, what resemblance to a solid fila- 
ment of crystals ? Crystals or crystalline 
masses are secreted by organic life ; but 
these proceed from, and never take the place 
of, living cellules. There must, therefore, be 
some controlling influence, which prevents 
the particles from uniting into crystal shapes, 
and moulds them into growing cellules, — 
some power which makes the curving outline 
as characteristic of the organic kingdom, as 
straight lines and fixed angles of the crystal 
kingdom. This power or influence is called 
vitality. By it the constituent molecules of 
a germ are themselves controlled, and are 
enabled also to bring other molecules into 
the same living state." 

It may be shown that the vegetable and 
animal kingdoms are not only analogous, but 
possibly the unequal offsprings of a common 
vital principle ; it may be shown that the 
animal kingdom forms an organic whole ; it 
may also be shown that certain inorganic 
forces are analogous to life, or, when com- 
bined in a certain way and subordinated to a 
higher law, enter into living organisms; but 
it has not been shown that life is identical 



164 



THE OUTSKIRTS OF 



with and on the same plane as chemical and 
physical force. A new element or a new 
combination and subordination of old ele- 
ments manifested itself on the earth when 
the lowest plant or animal first appeared. 
To account for this, Sir W. Thomson once 
suggested, more ingeniously than correctly, 
that a meteor brought the germs of life to our 
planet, which, in view of the heated state in 
which such objects must needs reach us, and 
in view of the fact that such an hypothesis only 
removes the difficulty one step further back, is 
very far from being a satisfactory solution of 
the problem.* The very readable address of 
Prof. Geo. F. Barker before the American 
Association for the Advancement of Science 
in 1880 f is far from convincing one that 
there is no organizing principle in animal 
and vegetable organisms ; for his conclusion, 
that "when, therefore, the chemist shall 
succeed in producing a substance constitu- 
tionally identical with the protoplasmic mass, 
there is every reason to expect that it will 



* fleeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Sci- 
ence. Edinburgh, 1871. 

t Address of the retiring President of the Association, Some 
Modern Aspects of the Life-Question. Proceedings, Vol. XXIX., 
Part 1. 1881. 



PHYSICAL SCIEXCE. 



165 



exhibit all the phenomena which characterize 
its life," leaves the morphological element 
entirely out of consideration. Will that arti- 
ficial protoplasm proceed to construct a cell ? 
Will that cell produce other cells, and con- 
struct an organized plant of a certain order, 
genus, and species ? 

It is thus evident that, in the first mani- 
festation of life upon our planet, we have to 
do either with the introduction of a new 
force and the institution of a new law by 
supernatural agency, or else, which is prac- 
tically the same thing, the evolution out of 
the pre-existing physical and chemical agen- 
cies of an agent which could subordinate 
these to its own purposes. So there was at 
least one point in geological history when a 
great innovation took place. If one, why 
not more ? If such a change occur in the 
lower part of the series, the physical, may we 
not look for one in the higher, the psychical ? 
Yes, when physical man " became a living 
soul," that is, when the moral characteristics, 
which distinguish him in kind from the 
brute, began to be. But we are told that man 
lost the crown of his primeval dignity, the 
spiritual life, which loss brought spiritual 



1 66 THE OUTSKIRTS OF 

. . . " death into the world and all our woe, 

With loss of Eden, till one greater Man 
Restore us, and regain the blissful seat." 

And in that remarkable conversation of 
Christ with Nicodemus, who may well have 
prefigured the modern materialist, we find 
these words addressed to him : " Except a man 
be born anew (from above), he cannot see the 
kingdom of God. . . . That which is born of 
the flesh is flesh ; and that which is born of the 
Spirit is spirit." Here Christ proclaims the 
absolute distinction between man's physi- 
cal nature and that new spiritual creation 
which is of the Spirit ; and His language in 
regard to the Kingdom of God is analogous 
to that of science in regard to the inorganic 
and organic kingdoms. That which is matter 
is matter, — life is life. Here we find that 
unity of method which, Herbert Spencer 
says, we may expect to find after recognizing 
unity of source ; and this unity pervades both 
the moial and the physical, the supernatural 
and the natural. 

2. It is a well-established fact that a few 
genera have remained unchanged from the 
earliest times to the present, rlso that species 
and even genera, very diverse in character, 



PHYSICAL SCIENCE. 



167 



made their appearance during a relatively 
short period, and, in some cases, even under 
general conditions of a similar character. 
Thus the Brachiopod genera, Lingula and Dis- 
cing, occur in Cambrian rocks, and continue 
through the different formations up to the pres- 
ent.* A. Hyatt, who has made a special study 
of certain groups of Ammonites, observes : 
"We find in looking at the table that all the 
series sprang from one ancestral form, and that 
as in many other cases among Ammonoids, 
the genesis of the forms must have proceeded 
with comparative rapidity. This, of course, 
means not with reference to the number of 
years, but to the portion of geological time 
occupied by a series. Thus the whole of the 
time during which the Oolites were being de- 
posited, was not needed in order to produce 
the extreme forms of the Sauzei group by 
evolution out of nodosum ; on the contrary, 
one single bed contains the entire record of 
their existence, one minor period alone was 
amply sufficient for the evolution of the most 
aberrant form of the w T hole genus, "f 

* Karl A. Zittel, Handbuch der Palaeontologie, Munich and 
Leipzig, 1880, Vol. I., Part IV., p. 717. 

t A. Hvatt, Gonetic Relations of Stephanoceras. Proceedings, 
Boston Society Natural History, Vol. XVIII. 1876. 



!68 the outskirts of 

Barrande, the late Bohemian paleontologist, 
after devoting about thirty years to the study 
of the fossil fauna of that country, in a 
chapter entitled " General Resume : Gradual 
Extinction and Renovation of Specific Forms 
of Cephalopoda during the Silurian Period,"* 
stated that, in the great Silurian belt of Cen- 
tral Europe, there appeared eighty-four spe- 
cies of Cephalopoda in what he calls the " Sec- 
ond Fauna," and nine hundred and thirty-eight 
new species in the " Third Fauna," only thirty- 
one species of the Second Fauna having sur- 
vived until the time of the Third Fauna. The 
eighty-four species of the Second included 
genera as diverse as the Orthoceras, the shell 
of which is a straight, elongated cone, and 
Cyrtoceras, the shell of which is horn-shaped. 
The nine hundred and thirty-eight species of 
the Third included Ascoceras (shell like an 
elongated cone bent upon itself in the 
middle), and the Nautilus (shell like a cone 
involuted in one plane, the outside whorls 
more or less completely enveloping the inside 
ones). In this connection it is to be observed 



* Joachim Carrande, Distribution des Cephalopodes dans les 
Contrees Siluriennes, Prague, 1870, pp. 283 and 284; also Cephalo- 
podes, fitudes generates. Paris, 1877. 



PHYSICAL SCIENCE. 



169 



that each of these portions of the Silurian 
Period covers but a fraction of geological 
time, and that the Nautilus has survived 
with but little change to the present. 

3. Not only did diverse genera sometimes 
orginate within a relatively brief space of 
time, that is, evolution proceeded with un- 
equal rapidity, but in the same genus evolu- 
tion proceeded unequally. Thus in reviewing 
and comparing the characteristics of the two 
genera of toothed birds, Hesperornis and 
Ichthyornis, Prof. Marsh remarks: " Hesper- 
ornis had teeth implanted in a continuous 
groove, a low, generalized character ; with, 
however, the strongly differentiated saddle- 
shaped vertebrae. Ichthyornis, on the other 
hand, had the primitive biconcave vertebrae, 
and yet the highly specialized feature of teeth 
in distinct sockets. Better examples than 
these could hardly be found to illustrate one 
fact brought out by modern science, that an 
animal may attain great development in o:^e 
set of characters, and at the same time retain 
other low features of the ancestral type."* 

4. The highly ornate character of many 
of the lower animals, the mathematical basis 

* Loc. cit. 



170 



THE OUTSKIRTS OF 



of their structure, as already indicated in the 
case of the Ammonites, points to something 
deeper than a mere struggle for existence or 
adaptation to environment. The plans of 
structure of the great types of life, upon which 
Louis Agassiz loved so much to dwell as evi- 
dence of mind in nature,* even though those 
plans be not necessarily, as he asserted, im- 
mediate supernatural products, point in the 
same direction; likewise do the mechanical 
principles involved in all animal structures. 
Therefore, granting life to be the plastic 
element which Evolutionists claim, there 
would seem to be some principle or law, 
aside from that involved in the mere modi- 
fications of forms, which determines the 
evolution of the fundamental structures and 
forms themselves and also the direction of 
their modifications. The interaction of such a 
principle with that of natural selection would 
be an adequate cause for the phenomena of 
animal life ; either alone seems insufficient. 
Zittel, in his historic review of Paleontology,! 
observes on this subject : — 

* Op cit., also his Graham Lectures on the Structure of Animal 
Life, New York, 1866, and his Methods of Study in Natural His- 
tory, Boston, 1868. 

f Op. cit., Vol. L, Part I., 1876, p. 42. 



PHYSICAL SCIENCE. 



171 



"Of course opinions differ greatly as to 
the causes which brought about the change 
in species, and, indeed, which led the changes 
to take a definite direction. That the prin- 
ciple of natural selection discovered by Dar- 
win still leaves many phenomena unexplained 
is no longer denied by the warmest adherents 
of the Darwinian Theory." 

Ulrici has an excellent definition of an 
organism which covers the ground which the 
Darwinian theory does not : " Every organ- 
ism is a more or less complicated system of 
matters and forces (of atoms as central points 
of all the working forces of nature), which is 
not only constructed with system and pur- 
pose, but also in its structure and develop- 
ment, as in the (original molecular) move- 
ments and functions of its parts, seems to be 
governed by a spontaneous force (so-called 
vital force) directing itself towards certain 
types, and serving definite ends.'''* 

5. The most satisfactory way to show 
both the extent and the limits of the appli- 
cation of the Development Theory is to 
apply it to the study of the extinct forms of 
some one group of animals, and to make as 
exhaustive a study as possible of them. This 

* Loc. cit. 



172 



THE OUTSKIRTS OF 



has been done in several cases with very 
interesting results by persons whose scien- 
tific attainments command confidence in their 
conclusions. 

Barrande's study of Silurian Cephalopoda, 
already alluded to, is a work of this kind. 
He concluded, from the fact that new forms 
appear so suddenly in the geological records, 
and from their not belonging uniformly to 
the lowest genera, that the theory of devel- 
opment could not be maintained ; that we 
have to do with creations, not evolutions. 

Louis Agassiz concluded, from his wide 
studies in zoology and paleontology, that 
" all these beings made their appearance 
upon earth by the immediate intervention of 
the Creator, "* because organisms have 
changed, while the products of physical forces 
have continued the same. 

In Germany Waagen,f Neumayr,J and 
Wiirtemberger,§ and in this country Hyatt || 



* Essay on Classification, p. 135. 

f Dr. Waagen, Die Formenreihe des Ammonites subradiatus. 
Geog. Pal. Beitrage, Vol. II., Part II. Munich, 1869. 

JNeumayr, Jurastudien. Jahrbuch der Geol. Reichsanstalt. 
Vienna, 1871. 

§ Lp. Wiirtemberger. Studien iiber die Stammcsgeschichte der 
Ammoniten. Em geologiscber Beweisfiir die Darwin'scbe Theorie. 
Leipzig, 1880. 

|| Genetic Relations of Stepbanoceras, and otber papers in Proc. 
Bost. Society Natural History. 



PHYSICAL SCIENCE. 



173 



have made a special study of certain groups 
of the Ammonitidae. Within these groups 
they have traced the gradual variation, not 
only in the life of the individual, but in the 
group itself, throughout the successive strata 
in which it occurs ; and they have thus been 
able, with some precision, even, to formulate 
the law which governs those variations. 
The great variety and wide distribution of 
the Ammonitidae adds interest to these indi- 
cations. 

Zittel, at the conclusion of his review of 
the Brachiopoda, remarks : " Although numer- 
ous examples from the geological succession 
of a number of morphologically connected 
forms of Brachiopoda could be cited in sup- 
port of the Theory of Descent, on the other 
hand it cannot be denied that the Darwinian 
Theory of Selection furnishes neither a suffi- 
cient explanation of the immediate appear- 
ance of numerous genera, nor of the develop- 
ment and chronological succession of the 
different families." * 

Professor Alexander Agassiz has devoted 
much time to a work on "The Revision of 
the Echini." In these studies he has had 

* Op. cift., Vol. I., Part IV. 1880. 



174 riIE OUTSKIRTS OF 

a distinguished co-laborer in Mr. Percival de 
Loriol, of Geneva. The general conclusions 
to which Professor Agassiz has thus arrived 
in regard to the origin of the Echini he has 
embodied in a paper read before the Bio- 
logical Section of the American Association 
for the Advancement of Science.* In view 
of the well-known anti-evolutionistic opinions 
of the author's father, as well as his own 
careful study of the subject, his conclusions 
carry great weight. In order to present 
them, it becomes necessary to quote at con- 
siderable length : — 

" Since the publication of the " Poissons 
Fossiles," by Agassiz, and of the "Embryolo- 
gie des Salmonidees," by Vogt, the similarity, 
traced by the former between certain stages 
in the growth of young fishes and the fossil 
representatives of extinct members of the 
group, has also been observed in nearly every 
class of the animal kingdom ; and the fact has 
become a most convenient axiom in the study 
of paleontological and embryological develop- 
ment. This parallelism, which has been on 
the one side a strong argument in favor of 

* Alexander Agassiz, Paleontological and Embryological De- 
velopment. Proceedings, Vol. XXIX., Part II., published 1881. 



PHYSICAL SCIEXCE. 



175 



design in the plan of creation, is now, with 
slight emendations, doing the duty on the 
other as a newly discovered article of faith 
in the new biology. 

w But while in a general w T ay we accept the 
truth of the proposition that there is a re- 
markable parallelism between the embryonic 
development of a group and its paleontologi- 
cal history, yet no one has attempted to de- 
monstrate this, or rather to show how far 
the parallelism extends. Although there is 
hardly a class of the animal kingdom in which 
some most interesting parallelism could not 
be drawn, and while the material for an ex- 
amination of this parallelism is partially 
available for the Fishes, Molluscs, Crustacea, 
Corals, and Crinoids, yet for the illustration 
and critical examination of this parallelism, 
I have been led to choose to-day a very 
limited group, that of Sea-urchins, both on 
account of the nature of the material and of 
my own familiarity with their development, 
and with the living and extinct species of 
Echini. The number of living species is not 
very great — less than three hundred — and 
the number of fossil species thus far known is 
not, according to Zittel, more than about 



Ij6 THE OUTSKIRTS OF 

two thousand. It is, therefore, possible for a 
specialist to know of his own knowledge the 
greater part of the species of the group. . . . 

" It certainly has been shown to be an 
impossibility to trace in the paleontological 
succession of the Echini anything like a 
sequence of genera. No direct filiation can 
be shown to exist ; and yet the very existence 
of persistent types, not only among Echino- 
derms, but in every group of marine animals, 
genera which have continued to exist without 
interruption from the earliest epochs at which 
they occur to the present day, would prove 
conclusively that at any rate some groups 
among the marine animals of the present day 
are the direct descendants of those of the 
earliest geological periods. . . . Such descent 
we can trace, and trace as confidently as we 
trace a part of the population of North 
America of to-day as the descendants of 
some portion of the population of the be- 
ginning of this century. But we can go no 
further with confidence, and bold, indeed, 
would he be who would attempt even in a 
single State to trace the genealogy of the in- 
habitants from those of ten years before. . . . 

" But in spite of the limits which have 



PHYSICAL SCIEXCE. 



1 77 



been assigned to this general parallelism, it 
still remains an all-essential factor in elucida- 
ting the history of paleontological develop- 
ment, and its importance has but recently 
been fully appreciated. For, while the fossil 
remains may give us a strong presumptive 
evidence of the gradual passage of one type 
to another, we can only imagine this modi- 
fication to take place by a process similar 
to that which brings about the modification 
due to different stages of growth, — the 
former taking place in what may practically 
be considered as infinite time, when compared 
to the short life-history which has given us, as 
it were, a resume of the paleontological devel- 
opment. We may well pause to reflect that 
in the two modes of development zve find the 
same periods of rapid modification occurring at 
certain stages of growth or of historic develop- 
ment, repeating in a different direction the same 
phases. Does it, then, pass the limits of 
analogy to assume that the changes we see 
taking place under our own eyes in a com- 
paratively short space of time, — changes 
which extend from stages representing, 
perhaps, the original type of the group to 
their most complicated structures, — may, per- 



i 7 8 



THE OUTSKIRTS OF 



haps, in the larger field of paleontological de- 
velopment, not have required the infinite time 
we are in the habit of asking for them ? . . . 

" Paleontologists have not been slow in 
following out this suggestive track ; and those 
who have been anatomists and embryologists 
besides have not only entered into most in- 
teresting speculations regarding the origin of 
certain groups, but they have carried on the 
process still further, and have given us genea- 
logical trees where we may, in the twigs and 
branches and main limbs and trunk, trace the 
complete filiation of a group as we know it to- 
day, and as it must theoretically have existed 
at various times to its very beginning. . . . 
The time for genealogical trees is passed ; its 
futility can, perhaps, best be shown by a 
simple calculation which will point out at a 
glance what those scientific arboriculturists 
are attempting. Let us take, for instance, 
the ten most characteristic features of Echini. 
The number of possible combinations which 
can be produced from them is so great that 
it would take no less than twenty years, at 
the rate of one new combination a minute 
for ten hours a day, to pass them in review. 
Remembering now that each one of these 



PHYSICAL SCIENCE. 



179 



points of structure is itself undergoing con- 
stant modification, we may get some idea of 
the nature of the problem we are attempting 
to solve, when seeking to trace the genealogy 
as understood by the makers of genealogical 
trees. On the other hand, in spite of the 
millions of possible combinations which these 
ten characters may assume when affecting 
not simply a single combination, but all the 
combinations which might arise from their 
extending over several hundred species, we 
yet find that the combinations which actually 
exist — those which leave their traces as 
fossils — fall immensely short of the possible 
number. We have, as I have stated, not 
more than two thousand three hundred spe- 
cies actually representing for the Echini the 
results of these endless combinations. Is it 
astonishing, therefore, that we should fail to 
discover the sequence of the genera, even 
if the genera, as is so often the case, rep- 
resent, as it were, fixed embryonic stages of 
some Sea-urchins of the present day ? In 
fact, does not the very history of the fossils 
themselves show that we cannot expect this ? 
Each fossil species, during its development, 
must have passed through stages analogous 



l8o TIIE OUTSKIRTS OF 

to those gone through by the Echini of the 
present day. Each one of these stages at 
every moment represents one of the possible 
combinations, and those which are actually 
preserved correspond only to the particular 
period and the special combination which 
any Sea-urchin has reached. These stages are 
the true missing links, which we can no more 
expect to find preserved than we can expect 
to find a record of the actual embryonic devel- 
opment of the species of the present day with- 
out direct observation at the time. The actual 
number of species in any one group must al- 
ways fall far short of the possible number ; 
and for this reason it is out of the question 
for us to attempt the solution of the problem 
of the derivation, or to hope for any solution 
beyond one within the most indefinite limits 
of correctness. If, when we take one of the 
most limited of the groups of the animal 
kingdom, we find ourselves engaged in a hope- 
less task, what must be the prospect should we 
attack the problem of other classes or groups 
of the animal kingdom, where the species 
run into the thousands, while they number 
only tens in the case we have attempted to 
follow out ? " 



PHYSICAL SCIENCE. x 8i 

We have thus reviewed the ground for the 
different views held by Louis Agassiz and 
Barrande on one side, — views which are 
also essentially held by Principal Dawson of 
Montreal, a substantial contributor to geologi- 
cal and paleontological science, and on the 
other side those of Zittel, Alexander Agassiz, 
and several specialists. The principal rea- 
sons assigned for Creation are the difference 
in the forms and the comparative suddenness 
of their appearance. While these facts do 
militate against the Darwinian theory of 
Natural Selection, which requires very slow 
and slight changes of form and great lapses 
of time, they are not inconsistent with the 
Theory of Evolution, rightly understood, as 
explained in paragraph four ; and they by 
no means necessitate an appeal to immediate 
supernatural causation. 

In reviewing all that has been urged for, 
against, and in modification of the D.vel- 
opment Theory, it may be concluded that, 
although the precise mode or law of devel- 
opment may not yet have been determined, it 
is safe to assume that the animal kingdom 
forms an organic whole, that is, that all the 
forms of animal life owe their origin to some 



j32 the outskirts of 

law or laws of development, and that man, 
by virtue of his physical nature, owes the 
origin of that nature to the same cause. On 
the other hand, it is in perfect analogy with 
the course and constitution of nature to 
affirm that the human spirit represents a 
higher element than any involved in man's 
physical organization, and that the new moral 
nature or life, which is spoken of as "born 
from above," and called a restoration of the 
divine image, represents an element still 
more distinct from and superior to the body. 
It is gratifying to see this substantially 
acknowledged by an eminent Evolutionist, 
already referred to, who, speaking from the 
rector's chair of a prominent German uni- 
versity, says : " But the value of man is not 
lowered by such considerations. There re- 
mains, in addition to the purely intellectual 
sphere, a wide domain embracing that vir- 
tue of the heart, morality, and religion, 
the knowledge of the ideal, in which he 
alone rules, and in which he raises himself 
far above his animal surroundings. . . . 
With self-consciousness not only did a new 
form of activity enter the world, but also 



PHYSICAL SCIENCE. 



I83 



a factor unknown in physical nature — ac- 
countability" * 

This view of nature may seem to do away 
with something of the force of the old argu- 
ment of design, but, really, only to replace it 
by stronger evidence of mind in the creation 
of a force and the institution of a law which, 
governing the constitutions of living organ- 
isms, produces, like the sculptor's hand and 
chisel, those same designs which were once 
thought to be immediate products of creative 
energy. Thus the successive types of life 
are not imperfect attempts of a divine Archi- 
tect, but simply earlier stages in the evolution 
of a force which is slowly but surely execut- 
ing His vast designs. 

Thus neither Creation nor Evolution alone 
explains the history of the earth, but both 
together do ; or, as Mark Hopkins expressed 
it long before these questions engaged so 
much of popular attention : " In attaining 
and preserving the unity and order of the 
universe, God's methods are two. Besides 
this of addition, there is another applicable 
only to organic beings, that of development?^ 

* Zittel, tiber Arbeit u. Fortschritt im Weltall. Eede an die 
Studierenden beim Antritte des Rektorates der Ludwig-AIaximilians- 
Universiiat. Munich, 1880. 

fOp. cit.,p. 69. 



1 84 



THE OUTSKIRTS OF 



After all this, it is not surprising to find 
that historical students recognize these two 
elements also in the history of man. Thus 
Philip Smith, following Schleiermacher, con- 
siders that "the whole course of history is 
made up of distinct moments or moves, like 
those of a game of chess, or of a military 
campaign. . . . They are of two kinds — mo- 
ments of origination, and moments of pro- 
gress or development." * 

Thus we come to presume not only that 
"one increasing purpose''' but that one method 
"runs through the ages" \ and this becomes 
more apparent when we review the whole 
field of the history of nature and of man. 
In the presence of matter and the action 
upon it of force under physical and chemical 
law, the process went on which finally re- 
sulted in the present physical cosmos. The 
introduction of "life," acting under the laws 
of "life," resulted in the whole vegetable and 
animal kingdoms. Under all these forces 
and laws and their interactions the earth and 
its physical, vegetal, and animal systems 
attained its present development. This pro- 
gression culminated with the appearance of 

* Philip Smith, A History of the World, 1864, Vol. I. p. 8. 



PHYSICAL SCIENCE, Y %^ 

man, rational and moral. Now going beyond 
natural history proper, we look through 
human history as the expression of his intel- 
lectual, moral, and social development. But 
in the appearance of Christ in the world and 
His resurrection we have to do with a creative 
event of transcendent import, and are thus 
permitted to stand upon the threshold of that 
existence of spiritual progression into which 
He admits those who receive Him, — an ex- 
istence to which no physical standard can be 
applied. " For it is sown a natural body 
and raised a spiritual body." 

In dimly showing us the mode of such a 
magnificent progression of events as the 
history of our planet affords, Science would 
seem to have touched the key note of the 
moral as well as of the intellectual and physical 
universe, and this seems to be borne out, even 
in detail, by the facts of personal life ; for we 
find, throughout the sphere of morals and re- 
ligion, laws, stages, epitomes, and designs 
analogous to those which characterize the 
physical world. Does not the religious life 
of the individual epitomize that of the race ? 
Do not men and races of men in their moral 
history illustrate retrograde development or 



1 86 THE OUTSKIRTS OF 

reversion ? Do not the plastic character of 
living organisms and the subtle and designful 
nature of life itself find their counterpart in 
the moral nature of man, and in the power of 
the Spirit renewing and fashioning it ac- 
cording to noble, moral, and spiritual types ? 
And may we not reasonably expect the life 
of man hereafter to be characterized by pro- 
cesses and stages analogous to those which 
have governed his origin and development 
here ? Thus the creations, the evolutions, 
and the cycles of the physical correspond to 
those of the spiritual, all alike bearing the 
seal of One Master Mind; and, in finding 
throughout the universe of matter, mind, and 
spirit unity of method, we are led to unity of 
source, which demands unity in our thoughts 
and beliefs; and, having yielded this, we shall 
perhaps willingly turn to a personal Christ 
for that personal knowledge of One who is in- 
deed personally "unknowable," although so 
plainly discernible in nature. 

For all the reasons brought forward, we 
conclude that physical science does afford 
some rational ground for a belief in the ex- 
istence of God, and for a recognition of the 



PHYSICAL SCIENCE. 



I8 7 



actual and potential moral dignity, and the 
immortality of man. • Thus both Religious 
and Physical Science minister to the one 
Faith, and the Law of Nature but re-echoes 
the "Law of the Lord." 



THE END. 



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